


Give Me A Try

by nezkah



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Internal Conflict, Mutual Pining, One-Sided Attraction, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Vignettes, can it be slow burn if they kiss in the first chapter, my answer is yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 13:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 123,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7270120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezkah/pseuds/nezkah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t planned to do it, which was probably one of the reasons she was avoiding asking herself that question.  But the thought was still there in the back of her mind, vague and nebulous and, worst of all, revealing in a way that made her feel some undefined mixture of vulnerable and irritated.  So, what?  Maybe she had planned to.  But it was something that needed to be fixed and understood, and meticulous planning was what she did regardless of the subject; the question she had hoped to answer wasn’t any more significant than any other question she had ever had. </p>
<p>At any rate, there was no denying one thing: of all people, she’d kissed Junkrat.</p>
<p>Continued in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/8234737/chapters/18871774">Make It Real</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Your Body Is a Weapon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7072693) by [vargrimar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vargrimar/pseuds/vargrimar). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> playlist: [the wombats - give me a try](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAprw-wBrcc)

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t planned to do it, which was probably one of the reasons she was avoiding asking herself that question.  But the thought was still there in the back of her mind, vague and nebulous and, worst of all, _revealing_ in a way that made her feel some undefined mixture of vulnerable and irritated.  So, what?  Maybe she had planned to.  But it was something that needed to be fixed and understood, and meticulous planning was what she did regardless of the subject; the question she had hoped to answer wasn’t any more significant than any other question she had ever had. 

At any rate, there was no denying one thing: of all people, she’d kissed Junkrat.

* * *

It wasn’t the first time the team had woven their way through the streets of King’s Row, not even the first time they’d done so under the dim glow of lamplight and the knowledge that somewhere out there between the suffocating closeness of the brick structures Talon forces might be waiting.

With the rest of the team pressing ahead towards the square and clearing the streets as they went Symmetra had followed behind, weaving delicate turrets to lace the narrow streets should any opposing force approach from the rear, and the seemingly inseparable junkers had taken to the side streets to assess the need for protection at their flanks.  They were an effective pair, she could admit that; despite their mercenary status it seemed they had no trouble going above and beyond what had been expected of them, although considering ‘above and beyond’ often included the need for yet more explosions and recklessness perhaps that would be giving them too much credit.

As they moved along the cobblestone streets they were never too far from each other lest they become truly separated, always within shouting distance.  The quiet of the place made it easier, and although it was mildly disconcerting they’d been thorough with their sweep so far and their information had suggested the chaos, if any, would be near the square at the front where Winston, Tracer, and Mercy would be waiting.  Which did make the junkers’ decision to hang back in the rear a bit odd.  Regardless, she definitely wasn’t worried.  Not about an attack, anyway.  Other things, though…

If she had to she likely wouldn’t even be able to explain the strange appeal of him.  Junkrat seemed to represent everything she felt was wrong with the world—dirty, disordered, occasionally violent.  A mercenary.  When considered as a whole he was an absolute disaster.  Or at least, that was how it had seemed when they met, and granted, for a month or so after.  But piece by piece small things had shifted her perspective to small degrees and suggested there was at least _something_ more there.  The clearly deep connection between himself and Roadhog.  His admittedly skillful and absolute love of his work and his constant effort to improve it.  The way he enjoyed entertaining the rest of the team, particularly Reinhardt, who for whatever reason seemed delighted by Junkrat’s juggling abilities.  

And more recently, instances of what seemed like genuine teamwork while out on missions.  There were times, more than once, when he’d put his life at great risk for the team, even just for her, and regardless of the motive she supposed it was laudable.  There was an ambition there and a capacity for cohesion that she hadn’t expected, and she’d wondered if maybe he just hadn’t had the opportunity before. 

The fact that she’d spent any time wondering at all was disconcerting, but moreso, if she were being perfectly honest, the shock of seeing him clean a month or so ago— _not_ covered in soot, partially on fire, or reeking of explosive powder for the first time—had thrown her so off guard that she may still have not fully recovered.  It was a strange thing to see, that kind of transformation.  Once he’d taken a bath he could actually be called attractive.  And true, if she were forced to say it, when he was made to stand up straight his form wasn’t unappealing.

He seemed to like her well enough as well, and if one ignored the constant teasing it would be easier to focus on his apparent fascination with and appreciation for her skills as an architect.  It was odd, but he seemed impressed by her constructs.  In fact, from the first day they’d met he had shown an interest and even amazement in her abilities.  It was, perhaps, one of the few things that had spared him from being written off from the start.

At some point despite being no less obnoxious he had somehow become likeable to much of the team, even somewhat endearing in his boundless enthusiasm.  It would just be nicer if his enthusiasm was focused on things other than bombs.

Still, it was terrible and embarrassing and it made no sense, but it had been well over a month and she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling in her chest when he fixed his strange amber eyes on her and threw her that lopsided grin that made it seem like he knew something she didn’t.  Even his manic giggle as he blasted from one rooftop to another was sometimes a distraction.  It was infuriating, but it made her heart rise in her chest and her pulse beat harder, and it was a feeling she still wasn’t sure if she liked, she didn’t _want_ to, but she knew something had to be done about it. 

More than anything she wanted to _understand_ , and it seemed like doing something was her best—or possibly only—option.  It might be madness, but in a way her plan seemed like the only possible way to dispel it.  She was going to approach him.  She wasn’t sure how, initially, but it would have to be something decisive.  This was not a plan that called for half measures.  And it needed to happen soon or she thought she might go mad.

There was never enough time to properly prepare for such a thing, nor would there be.  There could only be following through.  She just hoped something would give her the strength to do it.

As she worked to place a turret in the security of an alcove she heard the sound that she had been dreading on every mission they’d been on together for the past two weeks.  The clack of each uneven step of Junkrat’s prosthetic leg echoed across the cobblestones of King’s Row with a strange familiarity and it sank into her with a feeling of finality… the distinctive jangling of Roadhog’s chain hook was not present.  And as he came into full view under the lamplight, his lanky form bent forward under the weight of a large, spiked tire and his grenade launcher held loosely in his prosthetic arm she glanced away from the turret she had been constructing just enough to note the crooked grin curving his lips and the way he stood upright, arms swept out to the side like an invitation. 

“Did’ja miss me?” ~~~~

It had been approximately seven minutes, and furthermore, no, she hadn’t.  She would tell herself as much as often as necessary until it the answer stopped being ambiguous.  With a delicate turn of her fingers she finished constructing the turret and, despite the way his question hung in the air, deliberately took a quiet moment to assess her craft.  Once satisfied, she took a slow breath to give her a moment to admire the final product; the sight of it was grounding and familiar and sorely needed.

He’d barely even paused after the question before slinging the grenade launcher over his shoulder, allowed his shoulders to slump forward, and huffed a breath as he hooked his thumb in the direction behind himself. ~~~~

“Roadie’s decided to ‘ave a look up one ‘a them alleys, said I might as well just go ahead.  Don’t know why.  Think he might’ve just wanted to give me the flick.  Probably got tired of my yabberin’.  Can you believe that?”

“Yes, I can.”  She was pleased to feel her voice calm and steady and even a bit wry as she glanced towards him, offering a faint and inoffensive smile, neither wanting to agree or disagree too much.  She continued down the street at a slow pace, investigating for the next suitable spot for a defense.  He stared at her for a moment, eyes reflecting the lamplight under wild blonde hair singed at the ends and marred through with soot before abruptly offering a quiet grunt and rolling a shrug along his shoulders.  He followed after her with a bit of a bounce in his uneven gait.

“Yeah, well.  Guess I can’t blame ‘im then, can I?”  The words fell lightheartedly from his lips and he hooked his hands together to stretch his arms above his head.  She noted with interest (and some relief) that aside from his hair he looked relatively clean.  She caught her eyes following the curve of his body—the harness slung tight across the muscles of his chest, the smooth plane of his stomach, and worst, the way it dipped inward at the sides in an appealing ‘v’ shape that curved gently under the hem of his cargo shorts—before catching herself with a twinge of irritation, both her gaze and the emotion gone thankfully unnoticed.  Someone really did need to teach him how to properly use a belt. 

Loud cracks followed as he brought his hand to his chin and wrenched it, his spine emitting a series of pops that rang in her ears as he muttered appreciatively.  “Ouf… that’s the stuff.”  Satisfied, he turned his attention to the turrets, noting their locations.  ~~~~

“Well, you’ve been busy stitchin’ up the place.  I’d like to see ‘em try to sneak up behind us now.”  He grinned and—after she gave a small and somewhat distracted nod in response—looked down the street towards their front, where the quiet continued to linger.

“Heard anything from the rest of the team?  Sounds like nothin’s happening up there.  Must just be waitin’ for me and Roadie to show up to start the fun, right?  Can’t wait to see what sort of surprise these Talon blokes have got cooked up.”  A high-pitched giggle welled up from somewhere within him, more subdued than usual in the quiet night air but still irritatingly enthusiastic at the prospect, and she raised her hands to press thin fingers against her temples, forcing herself to take a measured breath with eyes briefly closed.  When she had calmed herself she fixed him with a firm gaze, lips pressed thin with impatience.

“This is not a game, Junkrat.  We could all be in danger here, and while I know you find it exciting there should be no ‘fun’ involved.  It would be preferable if there were not any fighting at all.”  She paused, thinking for a moment before pointing at him, expression severe.  “ _Or_ explosions.”

His face fell in an exaggerated pout, though she had suspicions the emotion behind it was sincere.  “Not even a small one?  Otherwise I’ve packed all my kit for no good reason.”  But when her expression failed to change he raised his hands to either side with fingers spread in appeasement.  “I know, I know, just havin’ a bit of fun.”

“At my expense.”

“Well, yeah.  I mean… ‘s hard not to when you’re all law and order and whatnot.  Saving humanity and such.  Makes you an easy target.” 

She found herself suddenly bothered by the prospect for reasons she couldn’t name and she turned the idea over in her head uneasily.  “… an easy target?”

“Yeah, y’know.  You’re easy to rile up with ideas like that.”

It was enough.  Perhaps it was just the stress of the situation, but something about his choice of taunts and his description of her as an easy mark caused something in her to light.  Nothing was as she had planned for it to be, but perhaps it was better this way; irritation lent her the willpower she’d been lacking and while anger seemed like a strange bedfellow for what she intended to do it would do the job.  She forced herself to take another slow breath before staring into his yellow eyes intently and firmly. 

“Come here.” 

Something in her voice had enough gravity to throw him off guard.  “Oi… I say somethin’?”  He sounded more confused than he had any right to be, but also seemed unnerved by the command, straightening his back defensively.  “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Come.  Here.”  Under normal circumstances it likely would have appeased her, but she had no intention of letting it go now, not when it had a purpose to serve.  Her voice sounded harsher to her own ears than she would like, but the thought of it gave her strength and made her feel in control, a feeling only boosted by the fact that he acquiesced.  He’d never seen her like this, and not many had.  She made a point of it.  But he seemed to know he was in some kind of trouble and at the very least seemed interested in trying to smooth it over.

There was a distinct slowness to his step as he closed the remaining space between them, drawing himself up to his full height to create some distance.   His lips pressed together in a nervous look, downturned at their corners with an indignant curve despite his puzzlement, and it tinged his voice with a unique sort of stubbornness as he bounced a bit on the tip of his toes, uneasy but standing his ground.  “I dunno what the problem is, it was just a bit of fun.  Nothin’ worse than what’s been said before.” 

Not allowing time for explanation, she laced her fingers under the leather strap of his harness, taking care to place her hand as far away from the explosives framing his chest as possible.  She could feel the steady beat of his heart at the back of her fist.  A strange but satisfying expression bloomed in his widened eyes as she pulled him closer to her own height—surprise with the faintest bit of fear lurking in their corners.  He stared back into her own eyes for only a moment before his gaze darted away as he shifted his weight uneasily on his foot to adjust to a new equilibrium.

“A’right, ya got me.  I’ll leave it.  For the rest of the mission.” 

She tugged the harness to force him closer towards her with a look of pure steel, eyes narrowed and jaw taut.  There was a fierceness inherent in the motion that she didn’t quite feel but it made her hold her chin higher nonetheless.  It was hard to tell what, exactly, she was irritated about, but she had suspicions it wasn’t necessarily anything he’d said.

His look of surprise was blatant… he tried a laugh, another high pitched thing, but found it sounding slightly too nervous and instead tried a grin.  It fit better, but it still seemed a bit wan and somewhat forced.  “Careful love, those’re live ordinance.”

And that’s when she pushed upward on her toes and pressed her lips abruptly against his.

He was stiff and he smelled like a mixture of explosive materials and smoke and it wasn’t _good_ but it wasn’t as bad as she had thought it would be.  Somewhere under the acrid smell she noted a pleasant, mellow scent but the adrenaline running through her veins served as too much of a distraction for her to identify it.

She could feel his pulse skyrocket behind her fingers but she held firm on the harness, actually grateful for the support, and chanced a look upwards at him from under her lashes only to find that he was still staring at her, his eyes the largest she had ever seen and pulling in the dim lamplight in wide, amber pools.  It was unnerving enough that she took in a small breath as she pulled back, brow furrowing. 

She no doubt looked more unforgiving than intended, but she gave her head the slightest of shakes and let her eyes gaze from his own down to his lips, which were still slightly parted in disbelief.  Her gaze darted back up to his as she mentally chided herself for the indulgence… such things were not part of the plan.  The important part was that he was clearly doing it wrong; while she may not have been particularly well versed in these things, the thought that he failed to comply with what seemed to be a basic expectation in a kiss would strike her as amusing and have to be fully appreciated later.

“Close your _eyes_ , Junkrat.”  _Jamison_ , her mind corrected her insistently, but she wouldn’t allow herself to say it. 

His voice came out breathless and lower than she had ever heard it as he offered a murmured, “Right, sorry.” Clearly still in a state of shock, the tone was interesting—fascinating even—but she had little time to mull it over; as he complied she pulled him delicately back towards herself to try again.  This time was softer… better.  Dangerously so, though the observation was lost on her in the moment.  His jaw was still somewhat slack and she took the opportunity to run her tongue across his upper lip, triggering a sudden inward breath from him and a low sound from somewhere in his chest.

She’d missed it somehow, but the metal of his prosthetic hand had at some point found itself at her side, the cool metal curled loosely and hesitantly against her hip, and she felt warmth at her cheek as a rough, gloved hand brushed her skin, trailing along the curve of her jaw.  He pressed in closer with a caution she didn’t know he possessed, as if approaching a wild animal, and her other hand was pressed flush against his chest which was _very_ warm and the world was very suddenly feeling too overwhelming.

The warning thud of her heart in her chest finally caught her attention and she took in a sharp breath as reality came abruptly snapping back into focus.  It was easy to disentangle herself; a simple step backwards and his hands fell away, or rather were left stationary as she removed herself from the equation.

Somehow she pulled together her composure from fragmented scraps and gazed at him in absolute silence for a moment.  She wouldn’t run, not after everything else.  Her own features managed to maintain that blessed calm as his hands dropped to his sides in one motion, as though the life had been torn out of them, and he simply stared at her in complete disbelief as she turned on her heel.

She briskly walked away up the street towards the square, her shoes tapping against the cobblestones as she retreated.  Once certain he would be out of sight she slipped into an alcove and leaned against the cool brick, insensate to the fact that it might further dirty her clothing to do so.  But the temperature and solidity was a godsend and she kept it at her back as she drew in slow, deep breaths, focusing on the pace of her heart and willing it to calm.  The process was slow but in the quiet it came easily; she was well practiced and despite the unique circumstances she was grateful to know the techniques still worked.

A part of her felt terrible... he had looked so utterly confused when she turned away, and he’d… well.  His reaction was unexpected.  His reaction was _disconcerting_ in its hesitant but seemingly earnest gentleness.  But she quieted her mind by necessity; there would be a time to deal with those thoughts and make whatever amends she needed to, but now was for regrouping, both metaphorically and literally.

She had just calmed her breathing when the sound of scuffing boots reached her ears.  Not quite trusting herself in this new form of flustered state, she raised a hand to gently cover her mouth as another sound abruptly joined it… a _very_ familiar one.

Junkrat and Roadhog had finally caught up to one-another.  Still some way down the street from the alcove she had ducked into, they were nonetheless in earshot and so far as she could tell headed in her direction, toward the square.  Their pace was slow and meandering, the clunk of Junkrat’s prosthetic leg mingling with the heavy, scuffing steps of Roadhog and in the quiet she realized she could hear their voices echoing up the cobblestones, just audible over their footsteps.  Roadhog’s deep, rough vocalizations—already so muffled by the mask—were indistinguishable except from the tone of them, and the occasional low rumble from him was matched in turns by Junkrat’s voice. 

She found herself wishing she couldn’t hear them and pressed back against the wall, clinging to whatever surface would help ground her.  She caught Roadhog’s voice rumbling in an insistent tone and took a deep breath, listening to the uneven conversation nonetheless; she didn’t have much choice, after all.

“Yeah, mate.”  Junkrat’s voice rang across the street, indignant.  A harder, questioning grunt echoed from Roadhog’s mask and was followed by an irritated, “Come off it mate, I’m _fine_.”

She heard a deep grunt that sounded as though the speaker was unconvinced, and after a long pause both sets of footsteps came to a slow stop.  Junkrat’s voice pierced through the silence, low and muttered as if worried someone might hear.  “… she _kissed_ me, Roadie.”

There was a moment of silence before a questioning rumble emanated from Roadhog and she thought she could _nearly_ make out the words, but the muffling nature of the mask still kept them from being clear.  Hushed as he was, Junkrat was still perfectly audible, and his tone lilted with a dreamlike shock that left him sounding genuinely bewildered and a bit lost.  Something about it, though—perhaps the way the uncertainty threaded through his voice—gave it a sense of something else.  She shoved away the idea that it might be hopeful.

“Yeah.  What d’you think that’s all about?”

A long pause followed.  For a moment she thought she’d lost track of them entirely before Roadhog abruptly spoke, bursting forth with a muffled laugh, and Junkrat returned the sound with a high-pitched laugh of his own. 

“C’mon mate, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”  Roadhog grumbled something accusatory and Junkrat returned, “Well I _could_ be one.”  His voice pitched in a giggle once again, but it sounded a bit doubtful of itself.  Still, the rapport between them seemed to have broken some of the tension and Junkrat added belatedly in a lowered voice, “… she did let me kiss her back, though.” 

She heard Roadhog’s distinctive voice, the chains of his weapon jingling as the sound of skin colliding and metal scraping on stone cracked in the air, followed by another high pitched laugh.  She could only guess they were roughhousing, but soon enough the noise died down leaving the both of them sounding a little breathless.

“Alright, I s’pose we’d better get moving.”

Her heart froze in her chest and the hand covering her mouth clamped down over her lips.  She could _not_ be caught here, not after everything else.  She was certain she wouldn’t survive it.  A scan of the area for a valid exit left her with no options except scaling a wall, and they were just as likely to see her if she stayed where she was.  Not to mention the noise her shoes might make… they weren’t made for stealth.  She was beginning to resolve herself to the mortification of stepping into the open when Roadhog’s voice cut through her racing thoughts, followed quickly by that of a very confused Junkrat.

“You sure, mate?  I thought it was this way.”  The low tone of the large man’s voice suggested a ‘no’ and Junkrat responded with a “well, alright then” before the shuffling footsteps started off in a different direction, one that was very distinctly _away_.

And suddenly she could breathe again.  Her chest felt tight and she allowed herself some time to calm herself as their footsteps faded into the distance.  By the time she stepped out into the open and began a brisk walk toward the square she felt grounded once again, save for the fact that her mind was now free and insistent on answering her original question.  She shoved the thought away resolutely and pulled her focus back to the mission at hand, not the taste of smoke on her lips, not the way her cheek still burned, and not the soot on the hip of her uniform.  She was not going to let it haunt her thoughts, and she was not going to look at him any differently when he rejoined the team.  She had decided.  Everything would be as it normally was.

But there was no denying one thing: things had not gone to plan.  She’d kissed Junkrat, and she’d liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now a version of this chapter from Junkrat's POV on my tumblr [here](http://nez-does-things.tumblr.com/post/153390606035/answering-on-my-shiny-new-writeblog-i-hope-you) if you're interested.
> 
> Update: this is now going to be multiple chapters, because you guys were too sweet, ya jerks. Originally a one-shot, so I have no idea where it's going to go... please bear with me.
> 
> this is literally the first fic I've ever written and oh god I have no idea what I am doing so constructive criticism is welcome but please be kind <3 regardless I hope you like it, this ship is destroying me slowly and I could not be happier
> 
> you can find it on my tumblr [here](http://rimmerslustmonster.tumblr.com/post/146288307441/give-me-a-try) as well
> 
> oh also the title is from the Wombats song [Give Me A Try](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8GRiiaef3s), definitely recommend
> 
> I have to give props to vargrimar here as well, they are a huge inspiration and hilariously I was headcanoning all this symmrat stuff to songs by the wombats and her excellent fic Your Body is a Weapon is named after one as well and I just thought that was fun
> 
> you can find vargrimar's Your Body Is A Weapon fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7072693/chapters/16076629) and I cannot recommend it enough, seriously please read it
> 
> also probably the thing that introduced me to symmrat in the first place and yes I made a reference to is [this comic](http://rottenchicken.tumblr.com/post/144488618469/focused-on-the-objective) by rottenchicken because just LOOK at it


	2. Chapter 2

Symmetra had to wash her uniform by hand twice to get the soot out and she had never been angrier with herself, but if she didn't remove every last speck of discoloration she would be thinking about it constantly. 

It had been a week since the _incident_ —the only thing her mind would allow her consider it—and things had been… tentative.  Uneasy.  It seems she’d tipped a balance and things had yet to find an equilibrium.  In some ways it seemed like nothing had changed—none of their behavior seemed particularly off, not Junkrat, Roadhog, or the team’s—but the air felt heavier when he was present and even in the times where her mind simply wandered to him, which was distressingly common.  With Roadhog she had to pretend she did not know that he knew.  With his mask he was impossible to read, and though she had no evidence for it and thought it might be paranoia she could swear he spent much of his time during meals watching her carefully.  She wasn’t sure if the tension was all her own or if it was shared with either of the other two.  Sometimes simply breathing in the air left her exhausted by the end of the day. 

It was clear though, her experiment hadn’t worked.  If anything, it had made it worse.

Symmetra had occasionally struggled to keep her focus during them as it was, but briefings were now a nightmare.  Being stuck in a room with Junkrat and the secret knowledge of the way his hand moved and the cool touch of his prosthetic arm was nearly too much of her, and gods, don’t let her think about anything else.  It seemed like she could feel his gaze on her too frequently and she had caught him staring once or twice, his eyes skipping away quickly whenever she noticed.  Worse, his expression tended to be the same as the one he’d had just before she kissed him: eyes a bit too wide and earnest, mouth closed but jaw still slack.  She was doing all she could to avoid fitting a word to it.  Everything her mind suggested was far too sincere for her comfort levels.

Despite all of that if asked she might have to say that things didn’t seem to have really changed when they interacted one on one, although it had always been in the company of others.  The teasing did feel different.  He still applied the occasional bravado to their interactions, which was the same as it had ever been, although a part of her wondered if it did have a somewhat more playful tone than before.  She’d begun to think perhaps it always had and she simply failed to notice, or denied herself the option.  But that actually felt somewhat easy… it was a pattern she could follow, a quick back and forth that didn’t require too much of her effort, and it felt familiar and routine in a way that was almost comforting.  Relative to the stifling moments when she had no distraction from the thought of what she’d done, anyway.

During long days she had retreated often to the silence of her own mind despite the fact that it, too, could a treasonous place.  They hadn’t had a mission for over a week, since King’s Row, or at least not one that required her presence, and the idle time was becoming unbearable, especially when she felt constantly on guard to not end up anywhere she might be trapped alone with him.

It was Ilios where she was forced to confront it all again.

They were pinned down, stuck behind the beautiful white stucco walls now riddled with bullet holes and scarring near the center of the square, the depths of a deep well beside them plunging downward into the sea where the crashing of waves echoed up, giving the space between the bullets a haunting soundtrack.  Talon agents had destroyed her turrets, although not before the constructs had done significant damage, and she was left clutching her photon projector tightly as she reloaded it with another round of hard light, doing her best to ignore the rapid staccato of bullets hitting the opposite side of the wall behind her.

Something had brought their comms down after Winston had bounded from their shelter during a break in fire with Tracer darting after him, the two of them splitting off.  From the sound of Winston’s roar echoing across the city it was likely they had dispatched the majority of the attackers, but the small group pinning Symmetra and Junkrat down had come in from the side when the opportunity arose.  Torbjörn was nowhere to be found.  She would guess he had set up a turret near the edge of the scuffle to protect citizens as they fled and to keep the fight more or less confined to one section of the narrow streets.

But they were stuck and more or less helpless under the fire of five… or possibly six enemy agents.  It wasn’t at all hopeless yet, but she’d rather not spend however long fending them off until Winston and Tracer got back.  Junkrat could ricochet grenades off of the buildings but she had few options unless she wanted to risk taking a bullet.  The Talon agents seemed to have learned where Junkrat’s fire could and could not go after one clearly exploded within range of them, and they had backed off, preferring longer-distance fire.

The loud _thud_ of something heavy hitting the ground a short distance away jarred her attention from the gunfire and when she turned her head, fingers still clutching tightly to her weapon, she saw Junkrat with his hands around a broad expanse of rubber and metal; he had removed the tire from his back and seemed intent to use it.  It would be the first time she would see it in person.  She had heard it before, bouncing happily along a street or climbing up walls, leaving puncture holes in its wake.  But she had never been present to see it in action, and the prospect was at once exciting and terrifying.  It was an impressive feat of engineering despite its mismatched appearance and she curled closer to the column at her back, shots ringing into the masonry outside and occasionally whizzing past, discouraging her from doing anything other than wait.

Junkrat seemed to have fewer of such concerns.  Only partially concealed behind his own patch of cover, his body bent as his prosthetic arm gripped the rip cord, peg leg held against the tire’s edge, and then his muscles pulled taut as he reared back, launching himself backward with a force that brought the weapon to life with a rumble that was deafening in its proximity. 

“Fire in the hole!”  His voice rang out harsh and gleeful as the motor revved and he turned to curl back around the wall for protection with his body pressed against the stone, still peeking out to keep the tire in sight.  The makeshift bomb screeched into action at a turn, she supposed simply from the angle and strength he had activated it at, metal spikes spinning dangerously and propelling it along the ground, and as she turned her eyes to him—rapt as ever, thumb hovering over the detonator—she somehow noticed for the first time the tightness of his jaw and the tension to his usually ecstatic grin.  He laughed… that was something she was used to, but it too seemed off somehow and the timbre to his voice was unfamiliar.

Perhaps she had made a mistake.  Or rather, perhaps she had made a bigger one than she had thought.

He quickly brought his fingers up to plug his ears, still holding the detonator, and she followed suit with a rising nervousness in her chest.  The painful sound of metal upon metal raked her ears and she found herself grateful for the column she had taken shelter behind as he pressed his thumb against the detonator in his hand, the gentle ‘click’ drowned out by the explosion that she could feel in her feet.  A few voices combined in a collective scream that lasted too long, echoed, dwindled to a faint sound before ending entirely.  What followed was silence, save for the bouncing sound of crumbled architecture and the clink of spare pieces of metal as they fell to the ground and the distant crash of the waves below.  The grim thought came to her that Torbjörn, at least, would have plenty to work with.

Junkrat pulled himself away from the pillar and out into the open without any apparent concern about any remaining enemy agents to survey the results.  His hand low on his hip, the prosthetic fingers curled around his chin and she could see him nod and gesture with his prosthetic arm in apparent satisfaction.  “Put some of ‘em in the hole, apparently.  That’s one way to do it!”  A laugh bubbled from him before he took in a deep breath that caused his chest to rise and fall in a way that looked oddly calmer.

Regardless of whatever emotion she had seen earlier the explosion seemed to have boosted his mood and, now assuming it was safe, she too stepped out into the light as her fingers slowly slid away from the trigger.  They were alone again, she suddenly realized.  How had she not realized they were alone?  Perhaps it was the absence of Roadhog—she was so used to them being together, but other junker had stayed back at base, his presence deemed unnecessary for this particular foray.  She found herself wishing he were there, which was certainly a first.

Junkrat stood out in the light, both hands on his hips as he pulled himself straight, arching his back in a lazy stretch.  His skin glistened in the hot summer sun, the exertion and heat of the day had left him covered with a thin sheen of sweat.  Small flecks of charred masonry rested on his shoulders like freckles and she noticed the light glinting off of a gold tooth from his broad grin.  

She watched him in silence as she slipped her gun back into its holster and crossed her arms carefully across her chest, trying to prepare herself.  For what, she wasn’t sure. 

He turned, and her stomach sank.  He probably wasn’t aware of what he was doing when he gave her that beaming grin, his tongue briefly prodding at the sharp edge of a canine tooth as he hooked his hands behind his head and walked casually back to her side, the pace of it making his gait more even than usual.  It didn’t make it any easier.  A large number of his grenades had been spent leaving the harness looking a bit empty and leaving more skin bare.  Gods, why her?  She wasn’t sure what she did to deserve this.

“So what d’ya think?  Extra points?  I’d say about half of ‘em down the hole, half of ‘em otherwise.  A whole six!  That’s gotta be worth somethin’.”  He shifted forward, rocking from heel to ball of his foot as a way of expelling some of his boundless energy, still with that broad smile.  He’d sidled in to the space at her right, close enough for her to catch the smell of explosive powder and that same mellow scent she had noticed before, more prevalent on the sea breeze.  It was hard not to lose herself in her own curiosity.

“I believe I said that this is not a game.”

She had.  About a minute before she kissed him.  It was unfortunate she mentioned it; it brought the memory crashing back to her and, as became quickly evident, not _only_ her.

His relentless movement slowed, though without entirely stopping, and the hands linked behind his head let go of one-another, the prosthetic one slipping into a pocket.  It was not subtle, not any of it.  Not the way she caught the movement of his adam’s apple along the curve of his throat, not the way his free hand moved back through his wild hair slowly and, she imagined, ponderously, and while it smoothed his hair out it also dusted his skin with an unfortunate, thin layer of soot as it came to rest at the back of his neck.  Of course.  She found herself wishing they were looking toward the ocean instead of bullet-ridden, charred walls but the distant roar of the waves was a steady rhythm she could train her heart to.

And her cheeks felt hot, moreso than the sun could take credit for.  Her arms unfolded hesitantly and she laced her fingers together, toying idly with one-another as she gave them her full attention, which was a wonderful distraction until he spoke.

“… hm.”  The small sound was menacing somehow, at a lower, knowing pitch that suggested it had more significance to it than a minor thought.  “Yeah, now that you mention it I think ya did.  Can’t remember when, though.  Memory’s a bit of a blur.  All these missions just kinda run together, y’know?”

She glanced at him and their eyes met, both of them looking quickly away.  She let her gaze return after a moment to his feet though, the grubby-looking boot prompting her to move on up his leg to the cargo shorts, ripped to pieces at his knees and similarly covered in a fine dust, although certainly not as bad as she had seen them before.

Her nose wrinkled gently in distaste.  She still didn’t understand it.   But as her eyes crept up his side and over the muscles of his forearm she did admit silently to herself that yes, despite everything else, he _was_ strangely attractive.  It was just a shame he wasn’t clean more often, although perhaps that was her saving grace. 

When her gaze reached his shoulders a sudden sensation came over her and she looked at his face only to see that he was staring back at her, and she had no idea for how long.  Her cheeks burned hot and her eyes drew wide in horror, lips parting in a silent breath of surprise.  And she should have expected it, honestly she should have known what was coming.

His features spread into a wide grin, head tipped ever so slightly to the side as he watched her inquisitively.  It was the same look he’d given her many times before, and yet very different; this time it had _teeth_.

She looked away abruptly as her hands curled into fists at her side.

“It was _at_ King’s Row,” she murmured forcefully, her teeth clipping the words short.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right.”  Seeming not to fully read the danger in her tone, his voice raised in a high pitched giggle and he looked away with eyes narrowed in mock thought, his teeth pressed lightly against his lower lip as he curled his hand around his chin to further the impression.  “I remember now.  _That_ was an interesting night, wasn’t it?”

“We should get back to the group.”  Her voice was flat and irritated… she wasn’t willing to accept the indignity of watching his performance, and it hurt some part of her, the idea that he might treat it like a joke.  But her mind recalled the way he had sounded when speaking to Roadhog afterwards, and the way he’d looked at her since, all confusion and that emotion she dared not let herself consider.  A joke might be better, in actuality.  She’d left without a word and offered him no explanation and it was the first he’d even alluded to it.  Perhaps she was being too harsh…. so she spared him, in her own mind.  Perhaps she owed him that, at least.

It didn’t change the way her jaw had set, however, and as she began walking in the direction she’d last heard the sound of Winston’s guttural roar Junkrat quite literally bounced enthusiastically along behind her, beside her, in front of her with a somewhat quieted chuckle, the shock absorbers of his prosthetic leg creaking occasionally with the movement.  Despite staring straight ahead she could see him in her peripheral vision and just as he came within full view his step faltered and the bounce disappeared.  It was enough for her to look at him full on.  His teeth were clearly working at his inner cheek uncomfortably and he let his eyes drift off to the side and over her head as he continued in awkward, backward steps to keep pace with her.  It was likely intended to be an inconspicuous transition.  But it was brutally obvious.

“Right, well… I probably oughta go see if I can find old Bonzer Beard himself, get him and his robots packed up to head out.”  He hooked his thumb behind him, avoiding her eyes in a noticeable way. “Figure the comms’ll be back on soon, you shouldn’t have any trouble findin’ the big one.”  Winston.  Tracer would probably be with him, and at the very least they would know what happened to the communicators.  They never could get Junkrat to wear one despite their best efforts, but considering the things he did it likely wouldn’t last long anyway.

He hesitated as he glanced at her, a fleeting thing that barely registered before he continued on with that same lighthearted tone he had been so carefully maintaining.  “Tell ‘im I blew up a whole group of ‘em, won’t ya?  Six!  No, wait, seven.  Exaggerate if you have to.”

Her footsteps slowed to a stop as he bounded backward with an enthusiastic-seeming wave and a grin that caught his lower lip in his teeth before turning abruptly and disappearing down a sidestreet.  It took her a moment to decipher what exactly had happened and she could only come to the conclusion that her expression had revealed more than she had thought.  Perhaps the hurt had registered on her features, or simply her discomfort from their conversation.  And he had noticed, very clearly so. 

She stood in the heat of the sun on the empty street, the silence and the sight of ruined buildings surrounding her like a thick fog.  The sound of the ocean was too far away and the breath she took did little to help her frayed nerves.  She carefully lowered her head into her hands and soaked in what little darkness they could provide, willing herself to focus and think on what was important.  She could grasp no conclusions in her state except for one: she absolutely had to speak with him.


	3. Chapter 3

They were given the night free with the debriefing scheduled in the morning.  Most of the team had headed off to their own quarters, Mercy and Tracer had holed up in the kitchen with a late-night cup of tea, and the junkers had taken over the recreation area.

 "I don't get it, mate."  Junkrat was draped over the edge of a couch, using it pretty much as incorrectly as was possible.  His foot was splayed over the back of it, arms sprawled out on either side along the seat cushions, head dangling over the edge to leave his hair standing on end and nearly brushing the floor, lanky body taking up the entire piece of furniture.  Roadhog's massive form dwarfed the footrest he sat on a few feet away and he seemed perfectly content with his placement.  He grunted in response, the tone questioning.

 "What I mean is... what I mean is she kisses me, right?  Looks me over,  _more_  than once."  He pointed a finger towards the ceiling to underline that fact and his brow furrowed as he stared ahead at the room, upside-down.  He pressed his lips together and huffed a deep breath through them to make a frustrated 'pbpbpbplbpb' sound, tossing both arms helplessly upwards and letting them flop lifelessly to his sides, a mumble falling from his lips.  "’Course she didn’t always look too happy about it.  Why do you s’pose that is?”  It sounded rhetorical and Roadhog remained silent.  While neither of them were too concerned with the grease and soot and other residues that came with the package of building your own machines and explosives, he did have a concept of what being clean was, and the idea that sometimes, other people might prefer you to be it.  Junkrat, however, was in a mood, and it was advice that was probably best kept for later.

 “Doesn't seem too keen on me lookin' at _her_ too much though, so far as I can tell.  Still get her to laugh every once in a while, though.”  It was an effort he’d been making for a good while at that point, and he’d learned a few things: crude humor was generally a no, the worst possible jokes were generally a yes, and making himself look like an idiot was always a safe bet.

 Junkrat burrowed his shoulders against the couch to get into a more comfortable position, exhaling a harsh breath that flared his nostrils as he fixed an empty chair across the room with a hard look, eyes narrowed in thought and lips pursed tightly together with the exertion of it.

 “Anyway, she didn’t seem too happy when I brought up the… err…”  He cleared his throat, blinking once or twice into the near distance in silence, seemingly having forgotten where his mind had been going. 

His voice was more subdued as he spoke again.  It required him to clear his throat once more before continuing.  “Thinkin’ I oughta make it up to her, probably?  Not sure how.  Ease things over.”  His eyes flicked to Roadhog, who seemed happy enough just to listen, or perhaps knew better than to interrupt him until the other junker got whatever he had to out of his system.

 But Junkrat worked his teeth on the inside of his cheek as he thought and eventually spoke again in a near-mumble.  “At any rate, probably shouldn’t mention it again.”  This time his gaze focused on Roadhog with a silent request for approval, or some kind of solid input.

 The large man made a noncommittal sound as he shifted his weight and spoke finally, his voice a low and brief rumble, unhurried as it lumbered over the words.  “Did it for a reason, though.”

 “Yeah alright, but _why_?”  Junkrat’s voice nearly cut through the end of Roadhog’s statement and deep wrinkle developed at his forehead, briefly turning his expression to a frustration intense enough that it verged on anger.  He reached down to pull a small red sphere from his pocket and chucked it up towards the ceiling.  The unlit fuse made it look like a cherry and Roadhog knew it was one of the harmless ones, just altered enough to give it a more satisfying bang when it exploded.

 Junkrat wasn’t sure how _he_ felt about it, so how exactly was he be expected to understand her?  He knew the simple things… she was smart, that’s for sure, probably could be called a genius, actually.  He’d known that from day one.  And not just in the sort of things she could make out of thin air but things like… how good she was with turret placement, getting the most out of them and usually giving whoever they were fighting a hell of a surprise.  He liked that, that detail in particular especially, and the _zap_ they made when they connected with an infiltrator was surprisingly satisfying.  And her weapon was something else.  The design of it was beyond him.  It was something he’d like to take a look at, actually, if she’d let him. 

 Her ideas seemed strange, though.  But really in the larger scheme of things that didn’t bother him much.  From the way other people looked at him sometimes he figured he couldn’t exactly call himself or Roadhog’s view of things—or even just them, maybe—normal.  He just had trouble understanding them… it made no sense to him, they weren’t ideas that really belonged in his world, but he guessed they might be interesting if he sat down and thought about it.  To be honest the prospect wasn’t that exciting.  He’d rather be designing new things, engineering new explosion delivery devices, mixing up some new combinations to get more interesting results, something like that.  But even if it wasn’t his cup of tea he guessed he could still admire her sticking to her principles and hell, maybe he ought to pay them more attention.

 ‘Course, her looks didn’t hurt.  Twist his arm and that was something he could go on about for days, but it was also a point of… hm.  Worry.  He wouldn’t admit that she made him feel self-conscious, but despite the way she looked at him sometimes what with the way he’d seen her eyes linger he had suspicions that she was less than pleased with something in his looks and that was less than ideal.  He had no idea why or how to handle the mixed feelings on that one.

 There were similarities there, he knew it.  A lot of differences, but similarities too.

 Junkrat’s mechanical arm rested on his chest as it rose in even breaths, eyes narrowed at the ceiling as they followed the movement of the cherry bomb, still mulling over the question of why she’d kissed him.  He mumbled, nearly inaudible.  “Can’t think of a _good_ reason, anyway.” 

 Roadhog breathed an extended sigh and leaned back on the footrest.  It was a conversation he was pretty sure they’d be having again, but hopefully under better circumstances, and maybe when the other junker was a feeling a little more receptive.

 At any rate, Junkrat knew she had to like _something_ about him.  He just had to figure out what.

 

* * *

 

Things had not gone well at Ilios.  They all knew that, really, but just how not-well things had gone wasn’t fully addressed until the debriefing in the morning.  There were photographs of ruined stucco and cracked foundations, scars from bullets and miscellaneous metal shards, and scorch marks standing out like a dark bruise on the building’s surfaces.  Not to mention the brick of the square near the well, which had been utterly ruined.

 Junkrat and Roadhog sat in the back of the debriefing room, Roadhog sitting in stoic silence while Junkrat splayed his feet out in front of his chair with his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.  Winston, Tracer, and Torbjörn had certainly done some of the damage, but the lion’s share seemed to have come from a more explosion-based source.  A source that was clearly not pleased with the way the meeting was going.

 “I know it’s not always avoidable, but we should try to make sure we use as much restraint as possible whenever we engage with an enemy force.”  Winston’s voice moved over the words carefully, his deep timbre clearly doing its best to suggest he wasn’t pointing fingers.  It was beyond obvious who the message was most pointedly directed to, however, and his large hand reached up to push his glasses up with a sigh as he glanced towards Junkrat at the back of the room, who was serving him an irritated glare.  Despite the tone of concession he was liberally applying it didn’t seem like it was working.  “There are repercussions for our actions.”

 Junkrat’s voice chased the tail of Winston’s sentence, sounding distinctly indignant.  “Ain’t that what ya hired me for, mate?  Blowin’ things up?”  He shifted his weight, sitting up slowly and resting one arm on the back of his chair so that he could gesture in irritation with the other.  “Pretty sure I remember somethin’ about my expertise bein’ an asset, that right?”

 The gorilla adjusted the papers in his hands and sighed, again, clearly willing himself some patience while trying to maintain diplomacy.  “It is, and don’t think we don’t appreciate you and Roadhog being here—“ He nodded to Roadhog, who silently nodded back.  “—but as a team we _will_ be held accountable for our actions, and we can’t afford to be this reckless with the citizens and property we are trying to protect.  I’m only suggesting we be more mindful of our settings next time, alright?”

 It might’ve been a lighter hand than they deserved but at the same time it didn’t seem like it was worth pressing the issue, at least not for the moment.  It was debatable how well the reminder would work on the junker while he was clearly feeling sullen and uncooperative.

 Winston’s tone had suggested they were done and he turned off the projector with a quick swipe at a screen.  “Alright.  You’re all free to go.  Let me know if you have anything we need to discuss.”

 Junkrat was on his feet and out the door as soon as there was an indication he could leave, and Roadhog followed after with a deep, rumbling sigh.  He wasn’t in a state of mind to notice any of the other team members, and they were barely ten steps outside the debriefing room when the lanky junker half-turned, bounding still down the hallway but backwards so that he could show his friend properly _just how annoyed_ he was.  “Can’ya bel _ieve_ that, Roadie?  You’d think I’d’ve blown up half the city, the way he was talkin’.  Which I _could_ , if I’d wanted to.”  He pointed with the statement, eyes narrowed, and then turned around again so that he wasn’t walking backwards, it seemed headed towards the workshop.  Still grumbling.  “What’s one small RIP-tire, anyway.  I could’ve made it ten times as strong as that.  OH—”

 Roadhog interrupted as soon as he saw Junkrat’s face light up.  It was a wild look, and one he knew very well.  His voice held that characteristically low rumble, but the tone was somehow gentle.  “I think maybe we should listen to him.” 

 Junkrat’s face fell immediately and his voice dropped to a despondent whine.  “Not you too, Roadie…”

 “He’s the one paying us.”

 They’d stopped walking at some point with Junkrat’s distracted thoughts, and he blinked as he considered Roadhog’s words, jaw working over the idea grudgingly.  Eventually he rolled a shrug unevenly over his shoulders with a deep sigh and turned to start back down the corridor.

 “Yeah alright.  Still gotta build a new one, though.  C’mon, I swiped some biscuits from the kitchen.”  Indeed, he pulled a sleeve of cookies from his pocket and ripped them open with his teeth before offering them to Roadhog.  The large junker took two with a certain degree of daintiness and loosened the mask to chew on one contentedly as he followed Junkrat to the workshop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short one, but the next one will probably be pretty long. wanted to give a little bit from Junkrat's POV, because Junkrat and Roadhog are adorable <3


	4. Chapter 4

Satya was having troubles of her own.

With Junkrat abstaining from everything but work she hadn’t had the chance to talk to him, not really.  After the disastrous de-briefing he had holed himself up in the workshop, choosing to interact nearly exclusively with Roadhog and seemingly content to spend the whole of his day there scribbling in his notebook and working relentlessly on repairs and improvements and new projects, surrounded by gunpowder, metal, welding equipment, and grease.  Occasionally she had sneaked past the workshop windows and each time found him there, bent over metal plates or links of a chain, meticulously welding or hammering large rivets through the modified rim of a tire, too focused on his work to notice seemingly anything else.  She wondered when was the last time he’d slept.  As far as she could tell he had been spending the night there. 

Possibly more worrisome was the fact that she hadn’t seen him in the mess hall since the meeting.  She could only assume that _someone_ was feeding him… although given how thin he already was it would likely be impossible to tell if he were going without food.  Torbjörn had made use of the workshop once or twice, but when she attempted to subtly inquire about Junkrat’s condition she had gotten a low grumble about him being ‘in a mood’.  She had seen Roadhog out and about once or twice as  well, but hadn’t seen him taking anything from the mess hall, and hadn’t really had the opportunity or the resolve to speak with him.

She found herself more concerned about Junkrat’s wellbeing than she would have liked, and by the third day a deep sense of unease had begun to grow in the pit of her stomach, leaving her feeling restless and even a bit irritable.  It was nothing too problematic.  Breathing exercises worked wonders and a quiet space could calm her like nothing else, but even though she was very skilled with handling herself she was finding this in particular to be a bit more of a struggle.

And the truth was it felt strange not to have him around.  She had thought she didn’t interact with him _that_ much in the course of a single day, but she had gotten so used to his occasional comment or joke and hearing his high-pitched laugh or just his voice in the background as he chatted with other members of the team that it had left a noticeable empty space.

It seemed sometimes as if he had not quite cemented himself as a part of the team, but his presence was decidedly noted as missing amongst everyone, and the mood at the compound had been somewhat bleak.  Though she wouldn’t blame it solely on his absence she felt it no doubt fed into the discomfort of it all.

She realized all of these things slowly and without much enthusiasm, but as it became clear to her she also realized grudgingly that there were two problems that could potentially have a similar solution: Junkrat’s withdrawal from the group and her need to speak to him somehow.  She wasn’t entirely sure about what yet, or at least _how_ to address any of it, and wasn’t likewise entirely sure if she could pull together whatever was necessary to do it, but perhaps she ought to view it as an opportunity.  Any planning she attempted felt half-formed and she was coming to grips with the idea that much of what she did involving Junkrat involved a degree of unpredictability.  It was frustrating, but there was also a sense of challenge to it that she was becoming more accustomed to.  At times, when the world felt more solid, there was even something thrilling about it.

 

* * *

 

She decided to bring him food.  It felt a bit unnerving as a tacit indication of caring for his wellbeing, but despite the fact that the thought of it made her a little anxious even just the idea of packing up a paper bag with a simple assortment of food gave her a sense of peace she hadn’t felt since the debriefing.  It was some small, active thing that she could do, and she breathed easier for it.  And besides, didn’t she—or at least _someone_ —owe it to him?  She was the only one who had been present at the fight and while it was true they could perhaps have held off the enemy until the others returned the opportunity to dispatch all of the agents was certainly not one that would have lasted long, and who knows how long their ammunition, or at least Junkrat’s, would have held them at bay.  The RIP-Tire may not have been ideal, but it had taken care of the problem.  It had just caused a few additional ones.

The idea that she had said nothing to stand up for him during the meeting ate at her with a sense of guilt and discomfort, even if she decided she was not entirely unjustified in refraining from comment.

So, once she realized the potential to alleviate the weight on her conscience (and besides, it would likely do a great deal to aid team cohesion) her mind took it and ran.  She had intended to simply collect an assortment of snacks or prepare something simple like a sandwich and found in herself, to her surprise, that she had very strong opinions about the type of food that ought to be included.  She realized quickly that she had no idea what he might like, but had strong suspicions that they could not be regarded as healthy, and set herself stubbornly on the idea that she would not be offering him any of the junk food scattered around the mess hall.  Except, perhaps, for a few cookies.  She had done her best to avoid his attention after the debriefing, but she _had_ noticed him and Roadhog munching on some as they had headed off down the corridor in the other direction.

Before she knew it she was asking Torbjörn about the contents of the pantry.  And while she was pleased to find that it would have everything she would need, the idea of cooking something for Junkrat welled up a sense of nervousness she had not been expecting.  There was no way to know if he would like it… but worse, she had to justify to herself why she was putting in so much of an effort.  She would make plenty for the rest of the team, of course.  It was something they could all enjoy together.  The idea that perhaps it wasn’t something she was doing exclusively for him eased her nerves and kept other, uncomfortable thoughts at bay.

Samosas, she decided, and pakora for their taste and their portability, and the fact that they were more or less bite-sized.  Somehow she didn’t think it would be useful to bring any dishware into the workshop and she had no expectation that she would be able to convince him to leave.  Reinhardt had wandered in from the training room for a snack and ended up pitching in with many polite questions about the food itself and a suggestion that perhaps she ought to cook for the team more often.  It was absolutely pleasing, and she thought perhaps she would utilize his help in the future.

She finished about an hour before the real dinner would be served and had packed some samples in a box, and offered a wave to both Mercy and Torbjörn as they entered the kitchen, engrossed in their own conversation, when Roadhog’s large shadow suddenly appeared at the door.  She was actually taken back a bit by his presence and stood dumbly with the box in her hands as he plodded into the mess hall.  Some part of her expected Junkrat to follow behind, and she noticed the disappointment welling in her chest with abrupt and disturbing clarity.  Her brow furrowed gently as she lifted her eyes to follow Roadhog’s lumbering form as he moved into the room.

Junkrat wasn’t there.

The feeling of relief was too strange for her to fully decipher given that her underlying concern had been his failure to take care of himself, a scenario that would have been remedied by him simply showing up.  But she shook it off gently with a slow, measured breath and ran a thumb along the edge of the container in her hand thoughtfully.  It didn’t feel right to not acknowledge Roadhog at all, and she found herself moving towards him as he stood surveying the unexpected food options on the counter.

He didn’t notice her immediately.  She cleared her throat quietly to get his attention.

“Roadhog… hello.”  The words felt awkward for no reason at all, and she lowered her eyes back down to her hands.  The large man turned and she noted that he was already holding a samosa.  She had never been able to foster a real feeling of comfort with him; she knew so little about him, and even simply his size was intimidating.  In combination with his brusque use of language and the impossibility of seeing his face she believed the feeling was justified… not to mention the fact that he _knew_.  Even just the thought of it set her teeth to her lower lip and flushed her cheeks with heat.  But it seemed rude not to at least attempt to interact with him, and suspicious as well. 

“I was going to bring this to Junkrat… I wasn’t sure if he’d been eating.”  Her chin lowered with uncertainty and she looked up inquisitively at him, trying to get a read on the man more or less unsuccessfully.  Roadhog shook his head and the enigmatic answer actually caused her lips to pull back in something like a wince.  Having to talk about it so explicitly was making it worse, and she desperately wished she could find something in his expression, his posture, _anything_ to tell her solidly what he was thinking.  She nodded with teeth gritted gently in uncertainty and tried again, looking pained as she did so.  “… is he in the workshop?”

Roadhog nodded as he looked at the samosa in his hand, perched upon three fingers and held like a prize, and his free hand unclipped one side of his mask, the rubber falling away just enough for her to see the side of a broad nose and the edge of his lips.  She realized she was staring as he brought the samosa to his mouth and took a bite, and she looked quickly away, turning with the intent of beginning the hardest part of her mission.  She had just begun moving when she was interrupted by a deep voice rumbling a question.

“You make this?”

She turned back in surprise; she so rarely heard him speak, and never without the muffling of the mask.  Interestingly enough, his voice was still rough and not very much different.  She nodded slowly, staring at the mask’s eyes.  The samosa was already gone and Roadhog simply lifted two broad hands towards her, thumbs-up.  The approval was oddly sweet, and she found herself offering him a faint smile.  Roadhog was already reaching for another one and as he brought it to his mouth he reiterated, “In the workshop.”

She nodded once again with more strength, boosted from the compliment, and set her path out the door.  Roadhog’s compliment had affected her mood more than she would have expected.  If he had liked them the idea that Junkrat might as well seemed more reasonable.  And it was strange and discomforting to feel a flutter of excitement about such a simple thing as bringing food to a teammate, but she recalled Ilios, she recalled the debriefing, and while it caused her to breathe a sigh of disappointment with herself it also eased her concerns about what she was doing.

 

* * *

 

When she reached the workshop he was, indeed, there.  From the window she could see him bent over something sitting on the floor, features narrowed in concentration and tongue pinched between his bared teeth, pressed against the side corner of his upper lip.  He was holding a large wrench, she realized, and as she moved toward the door she lowered her eyes to its metal surface, steeling herself.  It felt ridiculous, given that she’d come with such a simple task, but it helped immensely.

She nudged the door with the toe of her shoe and it slid to the side with a quiet, pneumatic hiss.  Standing there, she very suddenly realized that much of the workshop had been thoroughly contaminated by the junkers’ crafting and was absolutely filthy with grease and powder that she couldn’t be sure the nature of, and unidentifiable scraps of rubber and metal.  She had failed to consider this and it made her hesitate in the doorway with the toe of one shoe pressed to the very edge of that boundary, held there like a barrier to keep her from moving forward.

Junkrat seemed far more focused than she had ever seen him, his strange eyes following the edge of a metal disc intently, jaw squared as he worked in a level of concentration she would not have expected.  The muscles of his shoulders and back flexed in turns as he worked against a stubborn bit of machinery, the skin there streaked with the occasional spot of grease and speckled with debris.  She noted it with absolute dismay.  It was likely better not to pay too close attention to his hands.

Junkrat’s voice interrupted her from her thoughts and jarred her from her internal dilemma of entering the space.  “I’m busy, Roadie… dunno what you’ve got but no thanks.”  His eyes had narrowed only further at whatever detail he was working at in a way that she couldn’t be sure if it was displeasure or merely concentration.  She considered leaving.  That same disappointment welled within her but she pushed it away with a stubborn breath.  He _would_ eat, something at least, especially after she went through the trouble.  So she cleared her throat to alert him to her presence in the gentlest possible way.

It didn’t seem like it was the sort of sound he was expecting given the way he blinked and sat up straight, eyes darting open as he trained his ear on her before actually turning his head to see who it was.  Surprised, certainly.  And she noticed that he froze for a moment with his brow furrowed in some thought, his eyes shifting over the empty workspace before finally giving her his full attention, head cocked to the side with a look of confusion.

“… well, g’day.”  She clearly wasn’t who he expected to see and he sat there for a moment longer, looking at the placement of her foot with a single eyebrow raised in puzzlement.  She couldn’t be certain if the reason clicked with him or not but, lower lip pulled between her teeth in what seemed like a ridiculous amount of concentration, she slid her toes across the threshold

“Hello.”  She stood there in silence for a moment, looking between him, the box in her hands, and the workshop.  He was filthy, though not as much as she had thought.  She swallowed and braved on, taking delicate steps on the toes of her feet to cover the short distance between them. 

“Roadhog said you would be here.  I brought you some food…. I wasn’t certain if you’ve been eating.”   The way she shoved the box out toward him was probably more brisk than it needed to be, but she felt like she was holding her breath every second she had to be holding it.

Junkrat, for his part, stood up and wheeled around a nearby chair, prosthetic hand holding to the back of it to support his body at a lean.  “Yeah Roadie’s been raidin’ the kitchen for me.”  He was still looking at her strangely, but when the box was offered he stood up straight and took it, flipping it open with his thumb.

“Ah.  I see.” 

Her disappointment must have registered with him judging by the way he blinked and seemed to light up, hurriedly adding to the thought.

  
“Nothin’ like this though.  I could do with a real bit of tucker.”  He flashed his teeth in a genuine-appearing smile.  Then, realizing he didn’t actually know what it was, looked down at the package in his hands, one eye narrowed gently and a helpless look on his face.  “Err… what is it?”

Now that she was closer she could see how the dirt and grease painted the contours of his knuckles a dark grey and had worked their way into each little crease and crack in his fingers and palms, and she caught herself staring.  It bothered her, though less than she expected, so long as she didn’t need to worry about it near her.  But she couldn’t help the way her eyebrows drew towards each other in dismay at the idea of what it might do to affect the food.

Her voice came back to her slowly.  “Just a few things… samosas and pakora.”  Talking was actually better and her chest rose and fell with a deep breath, steadying herself and looking at him pointedly.  “It’s no substitute for a true meal.  Or a full night’s sleep.”

His lips curled in a grin wide enough that it reached his eyes and he hooked his prosthetic leg behind his left, leaning on the chair again with his mechanical arm as he only managed to partially suppress a burst of laughter.  It came out as an amused wheeze, bitten down between his teeth.  “You worried about me?”

That felt a little too close to home for her to strike back, and she dropped her chin to look at him from under her lashes, chiding him gently.

“Despite what you may think, we do need you.”

“Ah…”  His voice mimicked her earlier tone purposefully and his expression did falter for a moment, but he held onto that slow grin and his posture remained loose, possibly leaning yet more heavily.  “… I see.” 

She knew she had said something wrong.  That wasn’t difficult to see, no matter how he had subdued his reaction, but she left it alone, thinking it best to simply move on.

Her hands came together in front of her, fingers of her metal gauntlet splayed, tips pressing against skin in a comforting, orderly pattern.  It created a barrier, however small.  One she needed as she took a deep breath.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Yeah?  For what?” 

His voice lilted in a way that seemed genuinely confused but she kept her eyes pointed towards the floor with a brow furrowed in frustration.  “I think you were justified in your actions at Ilios, and it was wrong of me not to say something in your defense.”

It took a moment.  The silence was painful and she curled her toes against the soles of her shoes, wishing to shrink in on herself, but his voice pierced the fog abruptly, and loudly, in a cadence very distinctly him.  “Naaaaaah.”

She looked up, confused, only to see him with a genuine—if somewhat mischievous—smile and his mechanical hand lifted, knuckle curled, as if he were about to  press it against the tip of her nose.  She froze.  It tapped the air an inch or so from her skin before retreating with the rest of his lanky form to the workbench, which he set the box down on carefully, leaned against, and folded his arms over his chest.

“Wouldn’t worry my pretty head about it if I were you, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to the big ape either.  ‘sides, it’s given me a chance to tinker.  Got a _whole_ lot of new things in the works.”  He pushed off abruptly and moved towards her, ushering her towards the door with his hands but thankfully doing so by holding his touch an inch or so from her clothing the entire time.

“Go on though, I’ve got lots of things to build and explode, sometimes both in one!  Thanks for the grub!”

She was suddenly back in the corridor without being entirely sure of how it happened.  The door hissed closed and she turned to look at him over his shoulder only to see he had strode back to the center of the room, brushing his hands off, and sat right back down next to the tire he was working on, picking up the wrench again.  The box of food she had brought sat on the workbench, marred with faint streaks of grease and she felt pinpricks of moisture in her eyes, suddenly feeling as though she might cry.

The emotion was shoved violently away as she curled her hands into fists at her side and began a purposeful walk back to the mess hall.  She wouldn’t let it bother her that he hadn’t touched the food.  It hadn’t mattered much anyway, and she’d told herself as much the entire time, hadn’t she?  Mercy and Reinhardt were in the kitchen when she arrived and the medic swept over to her with a bright expression, eyes alight with enthusiasm.  “Satya!  Did you make these?”  In her hand Mercy held one of the samosas, and despite herself, Satya nodded and managed a weak smile.

“They’re absolutely delicious!  You must make them again sometime.”  Mercy swept in close to place the samosa back on the counter, clasping her hands together instead.

“I was told you took some to Junkrat, is that true?”

For a moment Satya felt the heat of mortification on her cheeks, but she was far too angry to let it take over.  Lest the anger be misplaced she breathed in and answered on a slowly-released breath.

“Yes… I don’t believe he was interested, though.”

“Ah, that’s a shame to hear.  He wouldn’t take anything I brought him, either.  I was hoping he might accept something from you.”  Mercy’s smile was kind and bright and it made Satya’s heart feel hard in comparison, and her thoughts snagged on the words, struggling to recognize something she knew was there.  She had little time to think, however, as the woman took in a breath with some sudden thought, raising her hands to press together at her chest.

“Oh!  I must have completely forgotten… there’s a book on the table in the recreation room that I’d meant to bring for Torbjörn, but I’m afraid he’s up to his elbows in batter and I absolutely _must_ keep an eye on the oven.  Would you mind getting it for me?  I’d be very grateful.”

Satya nodded dumbly in response, a bit overwhelmed by the events of the past ten minutes and by Mercy’s bubbly nature, and as the woman thanked her again she turned and walked back out of the kitchen.

It wasn’t until she was halfway down the corridor that she realized her path to the recreation room would take her back past the workshop, and she stopped with gritted teeth and tightened fists as she weighed just how much it might cost her conscience to disappoint Mercy.  But she’d had enough failure for one day and continued forward, resolute in her new mission.

It would have been impossible not to look through the window of the workshop as she passed by, but she tried.  Her lips pressed together tightly as she rounded the corner and slowed, eyes narrowed, steps shorter and heavier, and she came to a halt in the safety of the corner where she was least likely to be seen.

Junkrat sat on the floor with his legs curled together, his back against the tire.  The box she had brought him sat perched on his left knee.  He was holding a half-eaten samosa and his eyes were half-lidded with a blissful smile spread across his features, and even from the distance, she could tell: he had washed his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which certain people know more than they let on
> 
> so... this went a little long......  
> the next chapter is where the excitement will be, at least part of it, so this was sort of a bit of filler. but I hope you liked it anyway :3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry in advance, heed the content warning, I don't think it's that bad but it could possibly bother people

Satya felt better than she had in weeks.  For once she felt as though the results of a decision had gone exceptionally well—doing such a small thing for the team had certainly boosted morale, and granted she couldn’t be sure how much of a role she played, but Junkrat was finally out of the workshop and interacting with the them all again, more or less.  He had been busy outside the workshop as well, testing whatever he had been making in the training field, a fact that everyone on base was aware of thanks to the volume.  True, she could have gone without that, but it _was_ good to have him present again and she supposed she had to make some concessions.

Things felt normal, or better than, and she was fine with indulging and crediting herself for at least part of it.  The only thing she could think of that was marring it was that Junkrat seemed to have developed a grudge against Winston, but that had mostly played out with him making faces when Winston wasn’t looking, sticking his tongue out, mocking him silently when he spoke, but it seemed to be something minor and something she assumed would it would work itself out with time.  And if she had to admit it, as with an alarmingly growing list of things, she found something about it to be fairly amusing and had even laughed once or twice, hidden behind her hand during briefings.  She couldn’t be completely certain, but it did seem he may have been exaggerating the depth of the grudge for effect as well.  The thought was puzzling but thinking about it had gotten her nowhere so she simply moved on.

And she felt closer to many of them now as well.  She exchanged polite waves with Roadhog from time to time, she discussed recipes with Torbjörn and Mercy, and they were conversations that had naturally begun to include things about her past, although she had abstained from certain topics.  No one seemed to mind, so far as she could tell.  She hadn’t discussed the incident with Junkrat as she felt she should, but it seemed less urgent now, or possibly even unnecessary: everything was going so _well_.

But Ilios reared its head again.  They had received word that they had failed to root out the base of the Talon forces during their last mission there, and as a result not only were Talon supply chains still running but local law enforcement was feeling less than welcoming, in part because of the damage caused by their last visit.  The determination had been made that they were being shipped out again to fix the problem once and for all, but the weight of the mistake seemed to have shifted the mood again and set everyone a bit on edge.

They had been given the standard prep time and soon the team was gathering in the hangar: Reinhardt, Tracer, herself, and the two junkers, who appeared to be late.  Winston also had not arrived, making final arrangements and plans, most likely.  The fact that Winston had requested Junkrat come on the mission despite the results of their previous visit did strike her as a bit strange, but she supposed he had his reasons, and more information at hand than she did.

Junkrat was the first of the pair to show up in the hangar.  Everyone was making final preparations—checking weapons, packing whatever they deemed necessary, arranging armor, and Satya was sitting at one of the tables, running her fingers along the hard frame of her gauntlet, examining the range of motion of it with careful tests of extending and retracting her arm, making herself completely sure that it would experience no problems.  When Junkrat wandered in with that unique cadence of steps due in part to the weight of both the bag slung over his back and the spiked tire fixed to his harness her eyes followed him and she arched her back, sitting a bit straighter if such a thing were possible… she was not at all prone to slouching.  After he swung the bag to the floor and finished unclipping the tire from his harness for transport he stood up and stretched and a part of her hated how much she noticed about the way his body moved.

And of course, he turned to look at her.  She hadn’t been staring, not exactly, but she still glanced away for a moment with the arrival of Roadhog trudging in as an excuse.  She hoped it was casual enough not to be noticed.

She could tell Junkrat was moving towards the table from the sound of his prothetic leg on the hangar floor and the low, rolling clunk emanating from the bag he’d decided to bring over and she returned her gaze to him, lifting a hand to give him a light wave of acknowledgment.  He yawned—it was somewhat early, she supposed—and lifted his own hand in a two finger salute and a broad grin.  “G’day.”

“Hello.”  She curled her hands together in front of herself as his posture bent, his shoulders slumped, and she resisted the urge to say anything.  Instead, she went on a bit hesitantly.

“I believe I heard the results of some of your projects from the testing field.”  She nodded slowly towards the bag in his hand before looking up at him once again.  “Did everything go well?”

It took him a moment before he realized what she was talking about and he blinked down at the bag before his eyes lit up.  They darted over the rest of the space before he slid himself casually to a seat atop the table and leaned in a bit, lowering his voice.

“See this?”  His fingers reached into the bag and flipped a thick metal disc down on the table in front of her in one deft movement and she recognized it immediately as a bomb—a mine.  She wasn’t nearly as shocked as she probably should be; he handled them so casually it could be disconcerting, but she had begun to trust him to some degree not to blow himself up.  She realized this might be a mistake.  He lifted his head to glance inconspicuously over the room once more before leaning in towards her again with a conspiratorial mutter.  “I call ‘em Winstons.  Look like they oughta pack a big punch but are mostly just pop and fizzle.”  His voice lilted cheerily over the words as though he were quite proud of himself.

She looked over the object in front of her.  It seemed identical to all of his other mines that she had seen save for the fact that, instead of the grinning yellow face his typical devices and choice of decoration, the top of this was painted with bright red gashes in the form of a frowny face.  She raised her eyes to gaze up at him, intending to look unimpressed, but even though she tried to press her lips tightly together they lifted at their corners in a helpless smile.  She absolutely disapproved of his grudge with their team leader, but it was all so… well.  Him.  She attempted to admonish him even while trying not to laugh.  The effort turned her smile into something wry and she believed she likely pulled off a gently chiding tone.  “He’s only looking out for the good of the team.  That seems unfair of you.”

Junkrat shrugged again and plucked the mine from the table, shuffling it between his hands with a growing restless energy, the metal clinking gently against that of his prosthetic hand but being mostly drowned out in the busy space.  “Sorta what he wanted though, isn’t it?  Good for tossing someone about at least, not much else.  Well, compared to the usual anyway.  Just enough to keep the monkey off my back.  ‘Sides, I’m still bringing plenty of my own too.  Can’t be too careful.”

He gave her a secret, sharp smile and tucked the mine away in his pack with raised eyebrows in another conspiratorial look before turning to the recently-arrived Roadhog, abruptly sliding off of the table as he loudly greeted his friend.  She looked down at the hands folded in front of her and took a deep, slow breath, attempting to calm the faint beat of her heart ringing in her ears. 

* * *

 

Soon enough they were back on the plane Ilios.  Despite her elevated mood when they had left base the feeling of déjà vu had gripped her stomach with anxiety, a feeling that only became more prevalent the closer they came to their destination.  Mercy had joined them and sat beside her, her hands folded gently in her lap and her soft laugh soothing Satya when it reached her ears.  She hadn’t attempted much conversation, and Satya was grateful for that, spending the time to focus on her own thoughts instead.

When they arrived on the ground they had little time to prepare their defenses before they were to trigger a response from the Talon base, intending to draw the enemy to them rather than fight them in their own territory.  They would take care of the main group and then follow the stragglers back to their hole, and it seemed like a good enough plan given Satya and Junkrat’s proficiency with defense.  Lead them to the turrets and traps, minimize damage and risk of injury.

Given that their skills served fairly similar purposes it made some sense that she and Junkrat found themselves working together again, but being in Ilios again with him at her side was eerily familiar in a way that put a lump in her throat.  Things had gone smoothly at first with Winston and Roadhog drawing them out, Reinhardt acting as though he were being pushed back and leading them through the traps they had set, Mercy somewhere near the front on reserve, and Tracer generally causing confusion along the front lines.

 There were so, so many more of them than she had expected, and though the number wasn’t particularly large they were pushing more effectively than she had expected as well, possibly due to the fact that the Overwatch team was trying to keep the scenario under as much control as they could, and possibly because Talon soldiers had been _waiting_.  It wasn’t long before they reached the square at the edge of the city where they had set up a final line of defenses at the lighthouse, utilizing the columns as possible cover and the open spaces as opportunities to return fire.

 Once Talon soldiers reached their location things became chaotic quickly; Winston and Tracer had been split off again with Mercy still somewhere with them, Reinhardt and Roadhog had retreated.  These Talon agents seemed craftier than before, flanking them, drawing Reinhardt and Roadhog forward to test the defenses she had set up, and withdrawing until they could find an opportunity to open fire from an open door or behind cover where they had destroyed her turrets.

 Junkrat, for his part, seemed to be _everywhere_ , and she couldn’t be certain of the reason but a part of her felt he was being more reckless than usual.  He seemed to be enjoying being in the thick of it, snagging Roadhog’s chain with a metal hand as the weapon flew past an enemy in a miss with a “No worries, mate, I’ve got ya!”, the large man pulling the chain back in what seemed like a practiced maneuver for Junkrat to slam his feet into the original target and send him flying, a manic giggle following after the success.  Another part of her justified it by noting that the new, less destructive bombs he was using seemed to require more skill and strategy to use.  And perhaps some of it was driven by a lingering spite towards the criticism of his methods.  She supposed it would be easy to take offense when someone questioned your designs.  His bag of mines remained near her for the occasional refill as he used up the ones strapped to his sides and in his pockets, and while that made her uneasy she tried to push the thought out of her mind.

 At any rate the possible lack of care for his own well-being concerned her, though not too much, and she had taken the opportunities she could to consider his new equipment.  It really was impressive the way whatever changes in his design had been had so significantly changed the effects of what the bombs could do and she found herself focused on them in the chaos, grounding herself by closely examining how much of a blast they gave off, how much debris they created, how far they could throw someone as he went. 

 

Red, yellow, red.  Quiet, loud, quiet. 

 

The difference between the two was significant, the powerful boom from one drowning out the pop of the other.  A bomb thrown towards a group of Talon soldiers and detonated above them, showering them with debris as a distraction: red.  Junkrat expertly sliding a bomb beneath an enemy combatant’s feet as he ran too close to the drop off over the sheer cliff, a press of the detonator, the combatant popping lightly upwards and over the edge: red.   Junkrat laughing gleefully and bounding to the side of the drop off, leaning over it with a mocking, “Watch your step, mate!” to the body falling towards the water below.  An enemy agent running towards him, Junkrat doing the same, and another bomb slid under the enemy’s feet with a flick of Junkrat’s wrist, the click of the detonator sending them both into the air, showered with debris, creating a space between them that Junkrat utilized to lob some grenades.  She could see him in the air, his body coiled and prepared for a landing, but something didn’t seem quite right and her eyes dropped to the debris littering the ground.

 

… yellow.

 

For a moment nothing about the thought concerned her, not on a conscious level, but her stomach tightened and her brow furrowed as she looked from him to the debris and then back again, taking a step or two forward on instinct.  The sudden thought crashed in that his trajectory was too far away, gripped her heart, pulled it hard against her ribcage but her mind continued to insist it wasn’t true.  It was only when she saw the change in his expression when he realized that he had miscalculated that her mind switched to panic.

 He was in the air too long, and his features registered confusion, but very quickly the situation began to dawn on him, not quite drowning him in realization yet.  But as the edge of the wall slipped under him his eyes began to slowly widen at the sight of a yawning expanse of nothing save for the sea below.  He looked up in sudden realization, eyes flicking from her to something behind her and she saw his fingers flex vainly against the empty air, the rest of him having not yet figured out what to do.

 Everything felt as if it were happening in slow motion, like a horrible dream or a movie, and even while some part of her immediately pulled herself back from the situation she couldn’t numb herself to it, not at all.  Her hands raised to cover her mouth in horror and she barely noticed the jarring rattling sound that ripped past her ears, too close, and the sudden flash of Roadhog’s chained hook in her field of vision, flying viciously out over the gap towards Junkrat’s airborne form.  The junker’s body twisted in mid-air in a way that made her wonder ever so briefly if this was something practiced, Junkrat’s eyes on the glinting shard of hope, and as it drew near him his arms groped frantically for a hold on it.  Both hands connected and gripped like a vice to the thick links of metal and both the chain and Junkrat’s prosthetic arm screeched as they met.  She felt herself breathe weakly, chest tight.

 With expert timing Roadhog pulled back and the chain darted towards her, off to her side, but she could see the bottom of it catch the retaining wall with a dull, thudding series of clinks as the links dug into the carefully crafted masonry and the chain abandoned its upward trajectory.  Everything felt as though it was sucked out of her as her mind came to the realization: Roadhog was simply too late, the chain was too low, and Junkrat was still so far away.

 Junkrat had fallen too far and was being pulled into the wall a significant distance below them and she was too numb to move, although doing so—rushing to the edge—would likely have been far worse.  Reinhardt was there suddenly, his armored hands pressed hard against the wall, but there was nothing he could do either.  It was possible Junkrat could still hang on, but she thought she could hear the whistling of air as his body whipped towards the hard surface below.

 Out of sight, the momentum of the grenade launcher still looped around his shoulders whipped him to the side and the weight of the tire still attached to his back threw him in whatever way it pleased.  The chain rattled at a volume that seemed deafening and she could hear the high-pitched scraping of his prosthetic leg against a hard surface in a rapid cadence before the sudden smack and a breathless ‘ouf!’ as he hit.  The chain went almost immediately still.

 She could barely breathe.  The rushing sound of her pulse in her ears overwhelmed her but somehow failed to save her from the sound of a dull splash coming far later from some impossible distance below.  The only thing that struck her mind most was how he never made a sound.

 She thought she might be sick.

 Reinhardt turned to Roadhog with an authoritative tone pitched louder with urgency.  “Can he swim?”

 “No.”  The word had a sense of finality from the large junker, who had not moved since the chain went slack, but Reinhard’s question seemed to spur something in him and he trudged toward the ledge.  Both Reinhardt and Roadhog stood there in silence for a moment, looking down.  Everything felt fuzzy and strange and she desperately needed to calm her breathing because the world was beginning to feel as though it might go dark.

 Tracer appeared suddenly at their side and for the first time Satya had ever seen it she seemed out of breath.  Her voice pierced through the haze, the bubbly nature of it turned urgent in a way she had never heard before.  “What’s wrong, loves?  I heard something over the comms.”

 “Junkrat went over the edge.”  She couldn’t even be sure of who said it.  She didn’t have the ability anymore.  She heard Tracer’s voice again as she called out, the sound piercing her ears.

 “Junkrat’s gone over the edge, Winston!  He’s in the water!” 

Satya still held her hands over her mouth, staring lifelessly at the scar carved into the wall by Roadhog’s hooked chain.

 She had no idea how much time had passed when Winston thundered up from behind them seemingly out of nowhere, but it felt like an eternity.  Without so much as a second’s hesitation he launched himself over the edge.  Satya couldn’t look still, though she noted that Tracer said something she couldn’t hear, her voice lilting in that enthusiastic, hopeful tone.

 The world came rushing back as she said it again, bobbing on her feet with her fists clenched in front of her chest, and before Satya knew it she was being ushered along, rushed to somewhere she didn’t know.  Stairs, she realized, a thin track of them leading down to a thin beach below.  Roadhog, she similarly realized, having swept her up in his arms.

 They arrived in time to see Winston’s large form moving up the beach, carrying a thin, light body detailed in stark dark lines of color against its skin.  It was Junkrat, soaking wet, tucked under Winston’s arm and hanging like a ragdoll.  For a moment she had no idea if he was even conscious, not letting herself dare to think anything worse, and she found herself on her feet suddenly as Roadhog set her down.  She couldn’t move, not yet.

 Junkrat’s hair was streaming slightly discolored water over his eyes and the first, abrupt sign of life broke through the haze as he lifted his good arm, sweeping it back as well as he could and spitting some sea water from his lips.  He was clearly in shock, as were most of them, and the movement caused him to wince.  The strap of his grenade launcher was tangled around his leg, and likely the only reason he hadn’t lost the weapon entirely.  The rip tire and the grenades typically on his harness were all gone.  His right arm, the prosthetic, dangled limply and looked thin and uneven in the middle.

 She imagined that it was only after he was certain he was still alive that his teeth gleamed in a wide but exhausted looking grin, a faint laugh wheezing from his throat chased quickly by a heavy wince and a dogged return of his teeth in something that looked a bit more like a grimace.  He seemed absolutely determined to maintain the grin despite the fact that whatever pain he was in forced him to close one eye as he lifted his good hand to _wave_ at the group of them, fingers splayed in a wide and typically gleeful gesture she remembered very well, except understandably subdued.

 

And she was so, _so_ angry.

 

Without fully realizing it she strode forward and smacked his bicep hard with the flat of her palm with a wet slap, prompting him to whine an indignant, “Ow…”  It took him a while to cobble his wits together to say much else. 

 “Crikey…”  He sucked in a breath through his teeth and wheezed again with the word, coughing lightly and immediately regretting it, and struggled on through with as much indignance as he could muster, which was virtually none.  “I’m already busted, love, no need to add to it…”

 “You _idiot_.” She hissed through her teeth, visibly shaking.  “You absolute idiot.”  She couldn’t come up with anything more, everything was too loud and too bright, her fists clutched at her sides and her chest heaving with the effort of each breath.

 He didn’t try to defend himself save with another small wince and instead let his eyes—somewhat glazed—drift to Roadhog, who he gave a weak thumbs-up and a grunt, speaking as loudly as he felt he could.  “Good try, mate.”  Roadhog nodded in acknowledgment, his chain had been replaced on his belt at some point, and strode forward to pluck him from Winston’s arms, prompting another sharp breath and a low “ouf…” from Junkrat, one eye still closed to try to manage it as he wheezed another laugh.  “Not bad, eh?  How many feet d’ya reckon that was?  New record?”

 Reinhardt worked on finally untangling the grenade launcher from Junkrat’s leg.  It was a miracle he hadn’t lost his boot.  Tracer—no, Lena—was checking on Winston, who seemed just as calm and composed as he ever had been and she heard the muffled crackle of a voice on the other side of the comms, trying to pin it down and failing.  She could only assume that the others had taken care of what was left of the Talon assailants while she was in shock.  The thought would no doubt bother her later.

 Satya took most of it in without it even registering and stared at Junkrat’s form cradled easily in Roadhog’s hands as though it were no effort at all.  His hair forced clean and swept back as his chest rose and fell slowly, delicately, as though he were measuring his breaths like he wasn’t sure how many he had left.

 It was too much for her.  She had to leave and, excusing herself, began the trek back up the stairs in slow steps, counting each one, her hand on the railing and her eyes pressed tightly closed.  It was a terrible idea.  She couldn’t get the image out of her head, the way he had looked at her as realization dawned, the desperate grab for the chain that still rang in her ears if she let herself lose focus.  By the time she reached the level of the lighthouse her breath had been forced to balance itself and she curled to sit with her back pressed against a column in some sparse shade from the hot Mediterranean sun.  Mercy swept past not long after with a question that she answered without really remembering what it was and then disappeared down the steps to join the others.  Perhaps she had been off helping civilians, Satya thought idly, preferring to try to puzzle over positions and logistics rather than replay the episode over and over again in her mind.

 At least they’d done surprisingly minor damage to the architecture she thought, feeling hollow.

 Soon enough their entire team had gathered back at the lighthouse, Satya rising to her feet as she heard them coming up the steps and composing herself.  Roadhog was first, Junkrat carried in his arms, asleep so far as she could tell.  They all walked together to the designated pickup and boarded, taking off, leaving Winston, Lena, and Reinhardt behind to help clean up any mess and smooth things over with whatever local authorities might have complaints.

 It was eerily silent on the trip back, nothing but the clink of metal swinging under the influence of mild turbulence, the gentle push of air from the ventilation system, and nothing to distract her from the sight of Junkrat strapped to a transport gurney, breathing shallow, resting uneasily, and hair slowly drying to a light color she hadn’t seen before.  She noticed he had freckles on his bared shoulders, and as her eyes wandered tiredly she saw them trace along the contours of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.  She’d never noticed before.  Of course, she hadn’t really had much of a chance.

 It took some time, but soon enough she, too, fell into an uneasy sleep, her head resting against the shoulder of Mercy beside her and the woman’s cool touch briefly wrapped around her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is a little bit of a change in tone and I hope it's ok but sometimes I hurt characters but look! he's ok! everything is ok.  
> also there is a lot of redundancy in this chapter I think, sorry, sometimes I get pressed for time and also I'm bad at editing, please honestly do let me know if it's distracting I want to fix any issues people might notice <3


	6. Chapter 6

She was having trouble sleeping.

She hadn’t seen Junkrat since they’d all left the hangar, and to be honest she didn’t want to.  Mercy had given her a general update, unasked for—dislocated shoulder, broken ribs, and—but she had cut her off once she had confirmation that he was going to survive.  She didn’t want to know more, not yet, and possibly not ever.  Her temper was still running too high and she might be better never knowing how close it might have been.

The scene kept playing itself over and over again in her mind, particularly the way he looked toward her before Roadhog’s hook suddenly appeared in her peripheral field of view.  She should have just turned around then.  She wouldn’t have to confront any of the rest of it, his frantic reach and the hopeful connection of his hand with the chain links, but nothing would have been able to drown out the horrible sound of his body hitting the wall.

And then Winston pulling him out of the water, and her not knowing if he was alive or dead.

She found herself sitting on the edge of her bed, her feet on the floor, her body bent forwards, her mind too tired to will herself to sit up straight, and she shoved the balls of her palms against her eyes until she saw stars, her shoulders lifting and falling with a calming breath.  She had to go somewhere, to do something.  Anything to take her mind off of it. 

She was too exhausted to worry about appearances.  She didn’t suppose anyone would be wandering about so late at night anyway, so she padded quietly out of her room in her pajamas, the silk just long enough to brush her wrists and her ankles, hair loose down to the small of her back.

She had nearly convinced herself that the walk was aimless but of course she ended up at the medical bay.  It wasn’t an accident and she had no excuse, but she was fine with saying that anger was the main driver.  It was frustrating enough to know that she shouldn’t even care, at least not this much.  It was strong enough that it left her feeling sick to her stomach, and she hated it.

The dull blue glow of the overnight lights left the room looking clinical but peaceful and she made her way to the window and peered inside.  In the dim light of the medical machinery she could not see much.  The outline of a bed, crumpled sheets, and empty pillows.  Empty.  Or at least it appeared so.  She could see nothing else in the room that could house a body and the silence tripped an alarm within her but she pushed the panic away—she had had enough of it for one day.

Still, it was puzzling, and her mind twisted it into a mystery to be solved, clearing her thoughts and letting her focus on the details.  There wasn’t enough information.  The simple fact was that she would have to go inside, so she shifted towards the door and her eyes remained on the bed through the window as long as possible, narrowed against the darkness in hopes of finding some clue until her feet came to the threshold and she took a slow breath despite herself, nudging the door gently with one of her slippers.  The door slid open with that same gentle, pneumatic hiss.

She was nearly face to face with Junkrat.

Satya nearly screamed but brought her hands to her mouth just in time.  The sight of him _right there_ sent her heart to her throat but set a fire in her that must have shown immediately on her face as her eyes fixed on him in a hard stare.

She could see him better with the light of the hallway streaming in.  He was standing, a crutch wedged under his right arm, the limb missing just above the elbow, his left arm curled in front of his body with his hand gripping the aluminum supports.  He was completely sans prosthetics, wearing a pair of sweatpants slung low, no doubt provided by the med bay stock and tied off below his right knee.  His torso was bare and an expansive bruise had bloomed along the left side of his body along his ribs, already stained a dark purple.  For his part, judging by the way he was staring at her wide-eyed, he was just as surprised as she was.

He had something in his mouth.

Her curiosity did nothing to temper the anger flaring in her chest, but she did narrow her focus to his sharpened teeth, where she identified what appeared to be a somewhat frayed strip of white fabric straining against the corners of his mouth, she could only assume attached to something thrown over his back.  She leaned to the side slightly to get a better view and saw the dull glint of metal, a dark, uneven shape that looked deformed and mechanical.

He had _bitten off_ a strip of fabric from the sheets.  He had tied it around the mangled prosthetic arm, she had no idea how.  And he had decided that the best way to transport it would be between his teeth.

Her eyes lifted back to his and her stare was dangerous and low.

He stared back, his eyebrows knitted together in a look of absolute and clear guilt, and the glance that flicked to either side of himself before looking back to her provided him with no help whatsoever and did nothing to alleviate his look of realization that perhaps this was a scenario he would deeply regret.

He tried a pained smile and his best attempt at a cheerful, “’ello…” through the fabric in his mouth, but it made it difficult to properly pronounce.

“ _What_ are you doing.”  Her voice was flat and unwelcoming, her jaw set.  If she could have taken a step towards him in menace she would have, but they were already too close.

He made a mumbled sound, a jumble of words she couldn’t understand, and she reached up impatiently and pulled the fabric out of his mouth and off of his neck, dropping it un-gently at her side.  It was close enough to the ground from the sling that it didn’t make too much noise, just a dull thud as it hit.

The uneasiness was worked deeply into his features and bordered on terror as he let his eyes drift off to the side innocently, looking anywhere but at her.  He ran his tongue over his teeth as if trying to remove a bad taste from his mouth, procrastinating in his response, and shifted his weight as much as his somewhat precarious balance would allow, clearly unsettled and seemingly aware it was a bad idea to lie.  The words meandered out of him hesitantly and with a tone of apprehension.

“Just… hopping over to the workshop… in more ways than one, right?”  He laughed, winced, and she got the impression it wasn’t from physical pain.  His grin seemed a bit desperate and when she didn’t take the bait his chest rose with a shallow breath and he tried again.  He didn’t look thrilled about continuing, but her silence demanded more of an explanation.  One she doubted she would like.

“Doc took my leg, something about ‘escape attempts’?”—he laughed nervously there, a high-pitched thing, cringing as he did it—“Wouldn’t let me leave, so I uh…”  He tossed his head back subtly toward a closet door that was ajar in the back of the room.  “… I nabbed some crutches.  Just figured I’d just pop on over and work for a bit.”

She barely let him finish before she grabbed him physically, lifting him up and back with her smaller frame.  His body curled over hers by instinct, his left arm looping around her shoulders, her head pressed into his chest, him yelping in protest and pain but she was as unstoppable as a hurricane and she dragged him backwards towards the bed with the crutch rattling to the ground behind her.  She shoved him back into the pillows of the bed with enough strength to make him draw in a hissing breath, folding into himself with a wince, releasing a low groan.

Her hands remained on his shoulders as she pressed him back into the pillows forcefully, immovable as stone.  His skin was warm under her palms and his breaths were short and shallow out of necessity and she didn’t care if it hurt him.  She didn’t _care_.  She was pure fury and frustration.

“Why do you _insist_ on not taking care of yourself?”

One of his eyes was narrowed in a look she recognized as a reaction against pain but he stared at her in blank shock, lips slightly parted, breathing shallow and slow and his heartbeat hard against the palm of her hand.  His hair was mussed either from sleep, which she doubted, or the effort it had taken just to get to the door.  He was still clean and it was strangely unsettling to see, even in the half-dark.

The fact that he only looked at her in response and apparently had nothing to say for himself caused her to close her eyes in frustration and she dropped her head, her hair pooling over her shoulders and spilling over her arms and across his torso.  She could feel him move as he tried to shift his weight, carefully, his good arm lifting from the sheets in a slow, hesitant movement before going still, frozen in place.

She held herself there for the length of three breaths before pulling herself straight and releasing him, moving her hands through her hair to settle it.  It was a comforting motion and she closed her eyes to focus on the sensation of it, continuing to breathe slowly and carefully as she took a moment to feel the firm surface of the floor beneath her feet, something she could hold onto.

When she opened her eyes she fixed them on him firmly and much more calmly.  It was strange, the way he was looking at her.  If she had to put a word to his expression she wouldn’t be able to.  Perhaps something between contrition, a dull kind of fear, and hurt… though she couldn’t say on whose behalf.  It appeared genuine, disturbingly so.  But she had clenched her hands again at her sides again, the last thing she had not let go.  Her voice clipped over the words carefully, enunciating to make the order perfectly clear.

“You will stay here until Mercy tells you you can leave.”

He swallowed and nodded slowly before finding his voice, finally.  It sounded rough and dry in his throat despite the attempt to sound casual.  “… yeah, alright.”

She watched him for a short while longer with her eyebrows raised in warning before turning and leaving, exiting as quickly as she could before settling into a dulled trudge as she made her way back to her room.  The anger was gone, or at least buried deep below the surface.  It was incomprehensible.  _He_ was incomprehensible. 

She slipped into her room and gingerly closed the door behind her.  The silent dark felt welcoming but somehow empty for reasons she couldn’t define.  But she was too tired to bother with the thought and she shuffled forward, allowing herself to fall face-first into the pillows of her bed.  The exhaustion crept in quickly but she had enough time for her mind to wander back to his face, how uncomfortable he looked, how he winced when she pressed him against the pillows, never taking his eyes off of her.  He had looked terrified and so incredibly confused, or surprised, she couldn’t trust herself in the moment to tell the difference.  It reminded her of how he had looked after she kissed him.  The memory stood out stark in her mind and her hands recalled how warm he was despite her wishes not to remember it, not right now.  The day had been far too long already.  She curled in on herself slowly and carefully, her hands balled into loose fists, and willed herself, finally, to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter. next one should be longer!


	7. Chapter 7

The doc had taken his leg.  He couldn’t believe it.  The arm was mangled and next to useless, so of course she left that, but it’d be a pain in the arse to get around without the leg and she knew it.

Junkrat had gotten along fine with Mercy at first.  After he woke up she’d worked some of her magic on him, checked his shoulder after she’d shoved it back where it belonged back on the beach, so that was taken care of.  But yeah alright, she kept pokin’ him with things and tellin’ him he had to bathe and he was pretty sure he’d done that already considering how his lips tasted like salt water and his hair kept falling in his eyes.  Everything felt too soft and smelled strange and he wasn’t sure why he was supposed to get dunked _again_.  Something about cuts and scratches, something about keeping ‘em clean.

She’d gotten her way though.  He’d spent the time in the shower sitting alone, water pouring down on him, sulking and trying to ignore the way the feeling tightened his throat, made itself comfortable there. 

Mercy had told him he had to spend the night in the med bay and maybe the next few too, and after that he spent the majority of the time that she was stitching him up and looking him over being sullen and deliberately uncooperative.  Probably why she took his leg, but that didn’t make it fair.  Wasn’t that breaking some kind of oath?  The hippo one?  At any rate he felt righteously that his rights had been violated.

Busting himself out had been the natural choice, and yeah it’d been an effort but once he found the crutch he knew he was good to go.  And the sheets, well, it’s not like there weren’t more.

All kind of seemed like a terrible idea when Satya had caught him, though.  Like he’d made a mistake, even though he still wasn’t sure he thought of it as one.  He’d seen her upset before but this was a different kind of anger, and he knew it.  He felt off-kilter in a way he couldn’t remember feeling before and he didn’t like it.

Wasn’t like he’d actually carked it, hadn’t even come close.  What were some ribs anyway?  A week or so (alright yeah, with Mercy’s help) and he’d be right as rain.  The water though… that he would’ve rather not been involved.  Made him shiver thinkin’ about it so he pushed the thought away.  But the anger on Satya’s face and the memory of how her hands pushed hard against his shoulders, pressing him into the pillows and digging sharp lines of pain into his side kept him rooted in bed as promised.

He’d spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, occasionally glancing towards the prosthetic arm still on the floor by the door, still tied with the bit of sheet he’d ripped off with his teeth.  Still a good plan, his mind insisted, and he wouldn’t admit any different.  At some point he’d managed to drift off to sleep but she was still there, lifting him and pushing him back with surprising strength, the warmth of her, the way her body tucked into his, her head against his chest.  Inconveniently, yeah.  Uncomfortably, yeah.  And filled with rage.  But still.

His brain twisted it, flipped it, set the touch to something nice instead.  Gentle like.  Not angry, anyway, and he slipped away into it, body relaxing as his sleep evened out.

The sound of Mercy walking around pulled him out of it all.  The timing was unfortunate.  His mind dragged its feet from a haze of soft smells and dark hair and he lifted his head from the pillows with a low groan of protest, his thoughts latching stubbornly to vague memories until he suddenly burst fully awake, blinking into the light with a single thought: oh, no.  That wasn’t good.  Could’ve done without that.

But his side ached insistently, demanding his attention, and he considered raising his hand to prod at it before deciding otherwise.

“Good morning, Jamison.”  Mercy’s voice lilted over the words and over his name, and it sounded practically unfamiliar, coming from her especially.  He squinted, still in a bit of a daze, and looked back to the door.  The prosthetic arm had been replaced on a nightstand nearby, the fabric removed and likely discarded.  The crutch was nowhere to be seen.

“Yeah.”  He sounded more sullen than even he intended.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful, not really.  Christ, without her and the big ape he realized he might’ve ended up at the bottom of the ocean, but he wasn’t sure why she had to be so cheery and fussy about it.  Still, he pursed his lips together as he looked at her still a little bleary-eyed, following her movement as she swept about, eventually coming towards him and grasping his arm gently, lifting it upwards with great care, and prompting a wince from him and another breath sucked in through his teeth.  She continued on as she examined him, lowering his arm after eyeing the bruise and moving around to his opposite shoulder.

“I got the impression you might have gotten restless last night.”  She smiled sympathetically as he glanced towards her with slightly wider eyes and coughed weakly, guiltily.  “Given some of what I found this morning.  While I’m sure it was quite an effort, I am pleased to see that you came back to rest.”  She fluffed the pillows behind him, prompting him to lean back again.  He eyed her with mild suspicion the entire time.  Wasn’t exactly used to people being so nice.

“At any rate, I know you’re not very fond of being stuck in one place.  I want you to stay here until this evening, at which point It would be fine if you took a few hours to do what you’d like.  I would rather you not wander around too much, but if Roadhog would be willing to help you for longer walks I’m sure it would be fine for him to support you.  So long as you restrict your movement as much as possible and wear a brace you can walk for short distances.  Mind your posture.  Don’t wear the brace for extended periods of time.  If it starts to hurt too much you really must come back, and you ought to sleep here for now until the pain has gone down.  And no work that could cause straining.”  She rattled it all off with a sense of finality and with a smile, and he was surprised enough to hear it that he was silent for a moment.  She looked as though she were getting ready to leave, having finished up he guessed, and just as she was near the door he sucked in a breath of realization.

“Oi, Doc!” 

His fingers drummed thoughtfully against his leg as she turned around and he considered for a moment, his features becoming firm and decisive as he came to a conclusion.  “Think I can get that on paper?” 

* * *

 

 

Junkrat had spent the day feeling twitchy and nervous and _bored_ , but Reinhardt had stopped by and brought him his notepad and he’d spent the next hours scribbling in it while leaning back on the pillows, the pencil nearly chewed to death between his teeth over the course of the day.  All of the team stopped by at some point, actually, except for Satya.  Probably for the best, he figured.  As much fun as it was he’d prefer to avoid the look she’d had in her eyes.  Winston had been polite.  Junkrat had been tolerable.

Roadhog got the message from Mercy and came in around five.  Junkrat could always count on him—well, usually anyway—and it helped mentally balance him for a little bit at least.  Sure, he still wanted out on a permanent basis, didn’t want to have to come back, but he wanted it in a different way than before everything with Satya, and it felt like for different reasons.

“Good to see ya, mate.”

Roadhog grunted and nodded in response and pulled a chair noisily towards the bedside, dropping down on it comfortably with a low, rumbling breath.  He cocked his head to the side and stared at from behind the mask as his voice rumbled out from behind it, something Junkrat was used to.  “You alright?”

Junkrat pulled himself up to a sitting position in the bed and knew he looked like hell even without the bruising.  The lack of sufficient sleep had dug out dark circles under his eyes and the day of relaxation hadn’t done much to actually relax him.  He felt so clean that it made him feel uncomfortable and wrong, unnatural even.  No powder residue, no smoky air following him, no soot.  Not a single explosive on him.  Nothing familiar at all.  Left him feeling bare.  He hated it.

“Helluva night last night.  Got a visit from Satya.”  Saying her name felt strange on his tongue and he rolled it over mentally, his fingers tapping with restless agitation against his leg.  Roadhog noticed, of course.  Always did.

“Somethin’ happen?”

Junkrat’s lips curled in a wide grin and he wheezed, a substitute for a laugh.  “Nah mate, just came up and slammed me into bed.”  A high-pitched laugh came naturally and he winced with it, lifting his hand to touch his side gingerly.  “Not in a good way though.”  He dropped the joking tone and shifted his weight as though he might stand, positioned himself on the side of the bed, kicked his foot idly, slowing it when it started to jar his bones.  “Caught me bustin’ out.”

He went silent as he revisited the memory, staring at a point on the floor and working a thought over with his jaw.  Roadhog sat there, patient for a little while before prompting him.

“She say anything?”

It got Junkrat’s attention.  His eyes darted up, the med bay snapped back into focus, and he took to gnawing on his lower lip.  “Wasn’t too happy with me.”  His voice dropped to a thoughtful murmur.  “I dunno mate, she was _real_ upset.  Shoved me around an’ everything.  Looked mad as a cut snake.  Reckon she coulda torn me to pieces with her eyes.”

His face creased with worry as he ducked his head, voice lowered so that only Roadhog would be able to hear, despite the empty room.  “She’s right terrifying when she wants to be, Roadie.  Don’t let her looks fool ya.”  His voice took on the tone of a disheartened murmur.  “’s worse than before though, mate, with the way she was lookin’ at me.  I think I’ve really done it this time.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Dunno.  Not yet anyway.”

Junkrat shook it off with a sigh and another wince, noting to himself to remember not to move as much, and as his mind switched tracks he immediately brightened, sitting up straight, slowly. 

“Doc said I could leave for a while if you’d give me a ride.  You mind?”  He grinned, lazily but genuine, and curled his fingers against the edge of the bed in hopeful anticipation.  Sure it hadn’t been quite what Mercy had said, but it was pretty much the same thing, right?

Roadhog sighed, shrugged and stood up, lumbering toward him.  It took some doing but soon Junkrat was perched atop his shoulders uneasily, doing his best to maintain balance as Roadhog stood up and then ducking as he realized how close his head was to the ceiling and curling forward to toss his forearm across Roadhog’s head to stabilize himself.  Roadhog’s voice rumbled through Junkrat’s body as he spoke and the vibration made the lanky junker wince.

“You owe me.”

Junkrat’s voice raised in a subdued but gleeful laugh.  When hadn’t he? 

* * *

 

Of course he immediately asked to go to the workshop and settled in on the floor, surrounded by tools and bits and bombs… red ones.  Roadhog had re-acquired Junkrat’s leg from Mercy and dumped the prosthetic limb at the floor where it was within reach, the arm following, and had brought the brace that Junkrat had entirely forgotten to wear.  Strike one, he guessed.  The large man helped him into it.  It forced him to sit up straighter and he’d whined and moaned for a full minute afterwards before resigning himself to it.  He had immediately returned the prosthetic to his right leg, a wash or relief pouring over him.  Freedom, of a sort.  Couldn’t ask for anything more.  It was a bit dinged up from the previous day’s experience, but it’d work just fine for now.  The arm would have to wait.

He spent the next hour or so bent over a pile of red mines, wedging casing between his left foot and right thigh, holding tools between his teeth, loosening screws with his left hand, all with that steel-trap concentration he tended to develop when around explosives.  It was his element.  He tended to forget other things.  Basic things.  Roadhog had brought him cookies and his flask, filled with the usual milk tea.

Eventually the floor became too uncomfortable and the ache in his side sent him to a chair at the workbench where he tossed the brace and settled in over a single mine casing, leaving the rest of the them all marked with red in a pile on the floor, hollow shells, and himself surrounded by different containers of powder and paint.  He worked for a while longer but his body wore out before his focus did and he ended up face-down on the table with his arm curled under him, drifting off to sleep. 

* * *

 

 

Satya had gone about her day chatting with other team members, helping in the kitchen, happy to not have to think about Junkrat except occasionally when someone came back from visiting him in the med bay.  She felt lighter after the previous night.  She might regret the method, she couldn’t be sure yet, but it was a message that had needed to be sent, and one she felt like he had finally received.  Despite how tired she still felt, she wanted to visit the workshop to organize some of her plans so that she could get an early start in the testing grounds the next morning, so she had abandoned the book she had been reading and headed through the base, the muffled sounds of some of the team in the rec room together and the sounds of conversation from the kitchen as she passed by giving her peace.

When she turned the corner and moved to the door of the workshop, through the window she could see that there was an unexpected form there, but one she recognized immediately.  Junkrat.  A spike of adrenaline pushed her towards anger but after a moment’s hesitation she set it aside and opted for a hopeless sigh instead and she opened the door, stepping quietly through. 

He was sitting in a chair at the workbench, body curled forward and head resting on his forearm like a pillow.  His shoulders rose and fell slowly with each breath and the bruise along his ribs drew her attention for too long.  He was snoring lightly and was surrounded by an absolute mess of debris—paintbrushes, sandpaper, a metal casing, powders she couldn’t identify, various tools, a detonator pushed off to the side, and she noticed his prosthetic arm on the floor near him, still mangled.  That struck her as odd.  It looked as though he’d been working for quite some time, probably too long, and she thought the arm would be a priority.  The fact that he’d worked on whatever his project was before fixing his arm didn’t make much sense, so she didn’t try to make sense of it.

As she moved closer she could see his brow furrowed as if with worry, his expression suggesting an uneasy sleep, and she found herself feeling a sharp tug of sympathy despite herself.  His hair was in disarray and had collected soot or powder, she couldn’t be sure.  The dark material had settled on his arm where it was pressed against the table she could see a light blue paint smudged on the tips of his fingers.

How on _earth_ did he get so dirty so quickly.

She was fairly sure he wouldn’t notice her unless she forced the issue so she folded her arms over her chest, hips cocked to one side, and spoke with a single raised eyebrow.  “Junkrat.”

He sat bolt upright.  It might have startled her under certain conditions, or perhaps it was just the sort of thing she’d begun to feel herself getting used to, and he followed it with a strained, wordless sound that seemed like it was a smothered curse but trailed into his voice once he finally found it.  “Fuckin’ ‘ell…”

After a moment he looked up toward her blearily, trying to hunt down the source of the voice that had woken him up, and his face went pale.  For a second he just stared at her with slightly widened eyes before breathing, remembering something, and moving too quickly again, stifling a wince and only managing to raise his voice to a mumble.

“Wait, wait, hang on a tic…”

He patted down the sweatpants, seeming a bit agitated before finally finding what he was looking for and holding a somewhat smudged piece of folded paper out to her, looking far too earnest.  She tried not to notice his expression and took it with a small frown.  She opened it slowly, taking care with it, expression unchanging for a moment before she lifted her eyes to him doubtfully.  “Mercy is allowing this?”

It looked entirely legitimate, the conditions of his release written out in neat handwriting, signed at the bottom with a swooping ‘ _Angela Ziegler’_.  She was just… surprised.  Not just that Mercy had allowed him out with the restrictions, but that he’d gone so far as to get a note.

His features were painted with an odd mixture of emotions that she couldn’t quite define.  Hopeful, maybe, but also something that made him look very pleased with himself despite his clear exhaustion, his lips spread in a faintly nervous, crooked little smile.  He tried a laugh and only managed two quiet breaths of it.  “Well, sort of, yeah.  Made extra sure.  Doc’s orders.  Might’ve stayed out past curfew though…”  His eyes swept over the room, a bit out of focus, but there was nothing to indicate the time, and his features turned apologetic as he mumbled, still looking around as though he might have just missed the large junker’s presence.  “Roadie was s’posed to come get me…” 

The corners of her lips attempted a faint smile, but it was partially stifled by concern.  It didn’t quite count as taking care of himself, but she supposed that Mercy knew best, and she bit the inside of her cheek lightly to keep her expression level.  She breathed a resigned sigh and her eyes drifted to the messy work table in front of him as she raised her eyebrows with a careful loft of her chin.

“What exactly are you working on?”  A genuine curiosity had welled up in her as the frustration melted away, and only grew as he shrugged, winced, grinned as though he hadn’t winced at all, an impossibly cheery smile considering his condition.  Despite his fatigue it instilled in her that same feeling that she’d had so many times before, that he knew something she didn’t.  He didn’t answer at first but pushed himself slowly to his feet with a grunt, a little off balance without the arm prosthetic, and sweeping sheets of paper across the mess on the desk, seemingly by accident.  They settled over the debris as he steadied himself.

Some dark material was smudged along the underside of his arm and across his chest where they had pressed against the table.  He started to stretch and abruptly thought better about it.  He looked terrible.  Pale.  Bags under his eyes.  Sweatpants exceptionally low on his hips.  Everything _about_ it was terrible.  She eyed him warily, to be honest a little bit discomforted by the sight of him in more ways than one.  He lifted a finger, leaning forward as though he were going to press it against her nose as he had once before.

“That’s for me to know and _you_ to find out.”  He was looking a bit unsteady on his feet but she couldn’t help but fix him with a smile, her head tilted gently to the side as she took on the challenge.

She allowed herself to look around more carefully, more slowly, and she noted the empty casings on the floor behind her in a misshapen pile, raising one eyebrow delicately as she looked back to him.  “Are those your ‘Winstons’?”

He frowned immediately, his shoulders slumping, a look of disappointment taking over his face as he whined.  “I didn’t mean for you to find out right _now_.”

It was upsettingly endearing… she shook her head lightly to clear the thought and fixed him with a dry look before shifting her attention away again, ignoring him in favor of quenching her curiosity.  She stepped carefully towards the pile of metal and he followed, slowly and carefully.  She considered picking one of the casings up but thought better of it, instead nudging one gingerly with a toe.  She was by no means an expert with explosives, but had a reasonable guess.  “You’re decommissioning them?”

His voice was quieter, grin gone, hand pulled carefully upwards as he rubbed the back of his neck.  His eyes squinted slightly in the light of the workshop and she could hear a heavy breath or two escape him as she continued to eye the pile of metal on the floor.  His voice came out as a murmur.  “Figured I ought to.  Better to stick to what you know, right?  What’s a little bit of property damage, anyway.”

She could think of nothing to say… it was a topic that was still fresh, apparently in both of their minds, and so merely hummed a gentle ‘Mm.’ in response.  She noticed when she turned around that he’d taken to leaning heavily on one of the workshop chairs with his good hand, his eyes half-lidded and his teeth showing in the middle of a yawn.  He looked fit to fall over.  Something tugged at her stomach and she watched him carefully, considering, lips drawing into a thin line and brow creasing as she did so.

She hadn’t seen Roadhog, and if he was supposed to come get him then it seemed as though he wouldn’t be arriving in time to keep him from falling asleep at the desk again.  She weighed the sight of the smudges on his arm, the memory of the warmth of him against her skin, and let her eyes drift to the side, jaw going a bit tight as she said something she might regret.

“If you’d like, I could help you get back to the medical bay.”  Her voice had dropped unintentionally and felt a bit weak.  She closed her eyes for a moment against it and when she opened them he was considering her with a tired but curious look, glancing towards the floor with parted lips and then around the workshop as if lost.  It took him some time but he murmured his response with eyebrows briefly raised in mild bewilderment.

“… yeah, alright.”

It was too late to back out now.  She took a deep breath and hooked a hand behind her hair, pulling it to the side across her left shoulder, and hoping to the gods that he would take his place at her right side without prompting.  It took an expectant glance towards him, though, and one she was sure looked a bit impatient.  He moved over and slipped his left arm over her shoulder with a light and hesitant touch, the both of them suddenly staring straight ahead.  It was such a small thing, but he was warm and close and his weight on her felt like an anchor and she couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.  Her mind flicked briefly to her clothes and she tried not to cringe at the state they might end up in, but it seemed as though it would have been cruel to leave him on his own.

“Ready?”

His murmur was tired and soft, and she could feel his heartbeat next to her shoulder, steady and slow.  “Never been more.”

Both of them made a concentrated effort to keep their eyes forward and not to think about it as they moved awkwardly down the hallway, back to the medical bay.  She was certain it would be easier for Junkrat given his fatigued state, and that he might not even have a clear memory.  She hoped so, anyway. 

* * *

 

 Her sleep was uneasy again.  She woke later than she had meant to, went through her typical morning routine, and immediately felt better about the day.  When she opened her door her toes connected with something hard and solid on the other side and she looked down to see something beyond unexpected: a mine.  She stepped back immediately, her heartbeat spiking, and glanced down the corridor before lowering her eyes to it again, craning her head down towards it for a better view.

It was one of Junkrat’s, of course, smaller than was typical, and her features fell to annoyance as she noted the detonator beside it.  Who on earth leaves a mine outside of someone’s door?  But It fueled her to bend down to examine it, the detonator and mine linked together with a suspiciously familiar, unevenly torn bit of white cloth tied haphazardly around them.  They looked clean enough, and they weren’t going to go anywhere without her, so she reached down delicately to pick them up, her fingers hesitating for a moment before she fully committed herself.

It was fairly light in her hands.  The detonator fell away from the mine itself easily and the strip of fabric as well.  Red paint had been scrubbed away but remnants were there, and on top of it something else had been painted.  Not a grin, not a frowny face, but a light blue smile, clearly drawn carefully but a bit messy all the same.  She bit her lip to suppress a smile despite herself and glanced down to find that a piece of paper had been underneath.  She retrieved it and unfolded It with a careful turn of her thumb and narrowed her eyes gently as she read it, as if it was something that needed more concentration than a simple glance.

Written on the inside of it were the words: “Use me at the training grounds.”

She looked between the note and the thick metal disk in her hand and experienced an utter failure of her self control as she broke out into a quiet smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roadhog forgot to get Junkrat because was playing ping pong with Tracer. He tried playing foosball first but almost broke the table.
> 
> He's actually pretty good at ping pong. Just sayin.
> 
> Also you're gonna have to deal with how sappy I ship this ship sorry. also I feel like my phrasing got pretty redundant on this one as well sorry about that I'm tryin to work on it
> 
> ALSO also I do headcanon Junkrat as slightly hydrophobic but moreso with like big bodies of water, when it comes to showers and baths I feel like it'd be more just kind of hates it, but after an event like 2 chapters ago I'd imagine he'd be pretty sensitive about it.


	8. Chapter 8

Satya hadn’t been able to make use of Junkrat’s “gift” yet.  Jamison… right.  Jamison’s gift.  Her somewhat late start had meant that the base was busy and it felt like something meant to be used in relative quiet and privacy, and potentially _not_ in the morning.  She had no idea how destructive it might possibly be, and she wondered how much attention it might draw as soon as she detonated it.  There was something both exhilarating and terrifying about it.  She’d decided to wait until night, or perhaps while everyone was at dinner as dusk was falling.

So it sat in her quarters for the time being, tucked away at the corner of her dresser.  She had spent some time sitting at the edge of her bed, turning it over in her hands, letting her thumbs brush over the dried paint in silence.  It had been pleasantly cool and clean considering the state of the workshop it had been put together in.  A part of her felt like she should be more concerned about having an explosive of unknown strength in the base at all, let alone her bedroom, and a part of her _was_ concerned.  But he had been tinkering about in the workshop for months now without incident and the only slip up had been on Ilios, where the issue hadn’t been with the explosives themselves.  She trusted it.  Mostly.

Looking back—something she was doing far too much of—it was clear to her that he had prioritized the gift over the repair of his arm despite the additional difficulty and she wished she hadn’t noticed it.  It made her uncomfortable in a way she wouldn’t be able to explain, light and precarious and rootless.  It was unsettling, but much like his gift, also a bit thrilling.  It was something new, which would take some adjustment.  She wasn’t sure if she wanted to adjust to it yet, but she was beginning to wonder if she had a choice.

There were elements about him that were appealing, a growing list of things that she had already known but could finally name, and a part of her found it frightening.

He was strong; she already knew that, but there was a difference in seeing it and feeling it against her body without the buffer of anger to keep herself from noticing.  She didn’t like thinking about it.  It set her heart beating harder and made her cheeks burn.  He was clever, in unexpected ways.  Despite the chaos of his style in battle she could occasionally pick out a method to the madness, complicated and messy.  And if she had to admit it his exuberance could be addictive.  And he could be gentle, if the kiss suggested anything.  She tried to forget that.  There were too many things that she was trying too hard to forget about.  Whatever he was, it wasn’t simple or straightforward, and perhaps that was part of the problem.  Thinking about it was making her feel dizzy and she simply had to stop.

One of the worst things to contend with at the moment was the undeniable evidence that he could be thoughtful that was sitting on the corner of her dresser. 

* * *

 

Satya had heard the chaos before she could see it—the loud scuff of Roadhog’s boots on the floor, Jamison’s laughter, muffled and quieter than usual, and Roadhog’s low, rumbling chuckle in return with a collection of sounds she couldn’t fully identify in the background—voices, something falling—adding to the scene before she could even see it.  She’d been headed to the kitchen, intending to see if there were appropriate ingredients for another dish she wanted to try, but the noise roiling up the corridor made her think that she may have to put her plans on hold.

When she rounded the corner she saw the pair of junkers headed more or less towards her, Jamison on Roadhog’s back and only partially in sight, one of Roadhog’s large hands curled around something near his chest, some brightly-colored box with letters hidden between the junker’s fingers.  In his other hand he held a bright red popsicle, his mask loose and a dainty bite taken off of the top of it, leaving the popsicle stick bare.  Jamison, for his part, seemed completely content, thrilled even, to be riding around on Roadhog’s back, slung over the larger junker’s shoulders and wearing a wide grin.  And his shorts rather than the sweatpants he’d been given, with no shirt, as usual.  He was still clean enough for her to see the freckles dotting his shoulders, a new metric she supposed she would use, and it occurred to Satya that she had never even seen him in a shirt.  She wrinkled her nose at the sudden thought, wondering if he even _owned_ one. 

As the two of them lumbered closer she could see that Jamison had stuffed nearly an entire popsicle into his mouth against the side of his cheek, the stick jutting out between his teeth like an oversized toothpick.   And in the other side, gripped tight between his jaws, was a lit sparkler, brighter than the ones she had typically seen.

They hadn’t seen her yet.  The instinct to slip back behind the corner and wait for them to pass was there, but puzzling.  It reminded her of King’s Row, disappearing into the alcove and hoping desperately that they would pass by, but it felt different now.  She had absolutely no idea why the thought had even occurred to her, and edged herself to the side instead, out of the way enough that she shouldn’t be caught up in whatever was coming with them, but well within their line of sight.

Lena was suddenly in the corridor behind them in pursuit, darting out from the kitchen and bounding closer at a slow but energetic pace, skipping actually, her voice ringing out in that bubbly tone as she brought her hand to her mouth to amplify her voice.

“Oh, no!  They’ve got the payload!”

It had been enough of a distraction that Satya had missed Jamison procuring a cherry bomb from somewhere, likely a pocket, bringing it up to his mouth, lighting it with the sparkler, and tossing it behind him, three more of them wedged between his splayed fingers and ready for deployment.

Lena deftly avoided it of course, but Torbjörn, who had just trudged out of the kitchen behind all of them, jumped to the side with a look of surprise that switched quickly to annoyance. 

“What the blazes do you think you’re doing?”

Jamison’s manic laughter mixed with Lena’s as another cherry bomb went through the air, bouncing harmlessly off of the wall but leaving a faint scorch mark where it came to a rest and exploded.  His left arm reached up to pluck the sparkler out of his mouth, teeth still gritted a bit over the popsicle stick as he turned, wincing lightly but still fixing Torbjörn with a broad and sharp-toothed grin, yelling out something slightly muffled between pain and the obstruction in his mouth.

“Gotta test out the arm, mate!  Can’t be helped!”

She could see, when her attention shifted to it, the shape of his prosthetic arm on the opposite side of his body clinging to Roadhog’s shoulder pad.  It looked different, unpainted and somehow a bit incomplete.  Lena dashed past her suddenly with a wide smile and a wave, having overtaken the pair as another cherry bomb exploded with a loud _pop_ down the hallway.  Neither of the junkers seemed to notice her until they were fairly close.  It was impossible for her to tell if Roadhog had, but Jamison was obvious; when he caught her in the corner of his eye he turned with a wide-eyed blink before his features lit up with a somehow broader, popsicle-stick-laden grin.  She could see him tap Roadhog’s shoulder urgently with his prosthetic hand and he leaned forward and growled out the words between his clamped teeth.

“Oi Roadie, hit me!” 

Roadhog stuffed his own popsicle under the mask and jammed his hand in the box, holding a fistful up for Jamison to take.  Jamison’s metal arm grabbed for them and she could swear she saw something falter in the fingers of it as he only managed to secure one of them, seeming not to mind as three more of them fell to the floor.

He leaned across Roadhog’s body to hold the popsicle out to her with metal fingers and she took it carefully with a slow smile and a burning sensation in her cheeks.  His strange yellow eyes fixed on her features, moving over the lines of her face for a moment before they faltered in a wince.  His teeth gritted subtly on the popsicle stick between them and he turned the expression into a grinning wink before pulling himself back close to Roadhog’s back by necessity as he trudged down the hallway, Lena following with them, still laughing.

Torbjörn reached her side a moment later with a few heavy breaths and a low rumble of disapproval as he looked up and down the hallway.  “Could’ve just asked and taken as many as they wanted.  Think anybody’s told them they’re not on a bleedin’ crime spree anymore?”

She glanced from Torbjörn down the hallway where another cherry bomb bounced into view from around the corner and exploded with a loud _pop_ and lowered her eyes, trying to withhold a quiet laugh and failing.  The cold from the still-wrapped popsicle bled into her hands and she looked at it for a moment before bending, reaching for one of the ones that had fallen to the floor.  Torbjörn looked at her with a raised eyebrow as she held it out to him with a warm smile and, after he took it grudgingly, she quietly unwrapped her own and brought it to her lips, savoring the cool treat as Torbjörn did the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this chapter ended up being pretty filler-y because I was at like page 8 and wanted to break things up a bit, so it's also pretty dang short. Hope you're ok with that. More fun (or um, substantial at least) stuff is coming up I promise.


	9. Chapter 9

It wasn’t until late afternoon that she realized she never had gotten her notes from the workshop as she had intended to the previous day.  It had been distracting to find Jamison there, half asleep the entire time and clearly in need of assistance.  Possibly not in _need_ of it, but certainly being better for it.  Her clothes did require a wash and she did regret what the experience had done to the fabric, but in some ways she felt much better for having helped him even if recalling it tied her stomach in a knot.

It likely shouldn’t have been a surprise to find both Jamison and Roadhog in the workshop again, Roadhog sitting in a corner with a file, sharpening his hook, and Jamison curled over a table, prosthetic arm in a vice and still connected to his body just below the elbow.  He was bent over it, the fingers of it contracted into a fist, and his tongue stuck out in concentration over the popsicle stick still in his mouth.  A small welding torch was in his left hand and goggles hid his eyes.  She took care not to look too closely at the flame, and she still felt like it might not be the safest way to make whatever repairs he was working on.

Both of them had seemed fairly preoccupied—although Roadhog had lifted his head and given her a hefty wave, which she returned—so she decided to bother them as little as possible.  Still, it was hard not to pay any attention to Jamison as his hand moved, making delicate changes to the metal of his arm, the fingers flexing and contracting every so often as he tested them.  He seemed completely oblivious to the world around him and she took the opportunity to let her eyes wander along the curve of his back and down along his ribs where the bruise was already turning a sickly green on the edges, his hair, already having collected a significant amount of soot and only gaining more as he worked.  At least he came by it honestly, she supposed.  She let her attention linger on the tip of his tongue, his teeth, his hand for a moment as well, noting the way it moved quickly and efficiently over the metal and doing her best to ignore the grit worked into the cracks of his knuckles.

It was all giving her very conflicting emotions, and it was likely best she stopped paying so much attention.

She made her way to her side of the workshop.  The place in general had certainly suffered for the junkers’ presence, but her side was notably clean, a fact that surprised her enough that she paused and glanced it over, hand curled towards her chest and her thumb flitting softly over the tips of her fingers in sequence.  There weren’t many clues as to why or how, but she realized with sudden clarity that she could make a good guess.

At any rate she had come with a mission, and she bundled up her notes and tucked them away in their case, holding them to her chest in a way that felt somehow like a comfortable barrier, making her way back towards the door with the steady roar of the welder serving as the soundtrack to her exit.  She would have simply gone on her way, or at least she told herself as much, but when the sound of the welder faltered and lowered in volume as he reached some stopping point in his work she closed her eyes with a slow breath.   She took a moment to stare at the door in front of her before turning abruptly and decidedly around, hands still curled over the documents she held against herself.  The determined feeling in her chest felt familiar and she held onto it closely.

She could tell her shoes had moved into his field of view when he paused, still bent over, and cocked his head slightly to the side as the welder clicked off in his left hand.  His look up to her was slow from behind the goggles, his lips still curled around the popsicle stick in his mouth, which he had abruptly stopped chewing on.  It was strange to see him transition from full focus to distraction, and it seemed like a change he was having some difficulty making. 

He pulled the goggles up and looked at her, his eyes flitting to Roadhog in the corner with a glance that seemed strangely pleading, but there was no help from the bigger junker, who seemed happy enough to focus on his own work.  So Jamison’s eyes returned to her, wide and oddly evasive.    He looked somewhat like an animal caught in a trap which, in a way, he was.  She smiled as best she could, but there were hints of embarrassment and nervousness in her own expression.  For as freely as he had acted with her earlier the restraint and hesitation seemed odd.  It was interesting and curious.  It reminded her of King’s Row.

He moved to pull back, forgetting that his arm was still in the vice until it snagged and jerked him to a stop and he stared at it for a moment with his eyes slowly narrowing, lips pressing together hard against the popsicle stick, and gave it a low, distracted mutter.  “… right.”  Reaching over and twisting the metal rod loose with a grunt, he removed his arm from the vice and wriggled the fingers of the prosthetic hand reflexively.  He sat up straight with a look of victory only slightly dampened by the same nervousness that had lingered on his features since she had walked over.  After a moment he curled the metal hand on the back of his chair to pull himself to his feet.  He was closer than it seemed like he’d like to be, but she held her ground and didn’t step back.

The popsicle stick bobbed when he spoke as it rode around on his tongue.  “… g’day.” 

“How does it work?”  She hadn’t intended to be so blunt but her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she tipped her head towards the prosthetic arm with raised eyebrows.

He blinked towards it, lifting it up so that it was more easily in his line of sight, and rolled a shrug over his shoulders with one lowered eyebrow.  “Dunno how to explain it, really.  Just a buncha bits and bobs.  This bit pulls on that one and that one pulls the other.”  As if to illustrate, he rolled each finger in turn, and she watched the internal machinery with interest as it met the flexing muscle of his forearm just below the elbow where it was strapped in with a series of bands of tight fabric of some sort.  Perhaps he didn’t share the words but she could see the complex machinery, the efficient casings, the enclosed design that protected the most important parts without rendering them too difficult to repair, and she had suspicions that, if pressed, he would have more detailed things to say.

She had slung the case holding her notes behind her back at some point and stepped closer, her hands hovering an inch or so away from the metal as if she had intended to cradle it and turn it to better examine it.  The obvious soot and grease on the metal surface convinced her otherwise but she tipped her head to the side as she peered closely at it anyway, her brow furrowed.  After a moment her hands withdrew and she brought them towards her chest, the stark white of her gauntlet pairing against the dark skin of her fingers and immaculately painted nails as she pinched them together and then pulled them apart, bending light suddenly into existence, within a short period of time creating a rough equivalent of the inner workings. 

At first she failed to notice the way he watched her, entranced, as she wove the draft in small, smooth motions and paused when she suddenly recalled his presence.  Her eyes flicked to him and he glanced from her own down to the gently glowing mechanism between her hands, to the gauntlet enclosing the length of her arm.  His fingers flexed again, experimentally, and something caught in the index finger, prompting him to give the prosthetic limb a sharp look, lips pressed together and curled downwards on one side.  He lowered the limb in front of himself, his good fingers tugging lightly at the metal ones as he tested them idly, still watching her, his lips curled into an enthused smile and his eyes bright.

“Always wondered how ya did that.”

She smiled faintly and wove another cable into being, glancing from the mechanism to his arm, making mental notes and nodding with her reply.

“It requires a great deal of skill and concentration, and is indeed beyond the grasp of many people.”  She noted in her peripheral vision that he blinked, head tipped a bit to the side and the enthusiasm on his features slipping, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. 

“… A’right.”  He lifted his arm to rub gently at the nape of his neck.  “Hard to understand, then.”

“Yes.  It is not something that just anyone can learn.  It requires patience to develop and skill to execute.  To work with hard light, one must understand the deeper workings of what one creates.”

She caught the way his brow furrowed even as her attention wandered back to her craft and the mechanism slowly became solid and she grasped it lightly in her hand.  She raised her eyes to him and found his expression difficult to read—his lips twitched, curled up on one side in a what seemed like a dogged effort at a smile that she failed to understand.

“D’ya mind if I look at it?” 

She nodded and held it carefully out for him to take, the object placed at the very tips of her fingers lest her gauntlet come into contact with his hand, still dusted with soot.  She could see the way his teeth worked at the inside of his cheek thoughtfully as his eyes shifted from the mechanism to her face and then back, lips curled around the popsicle stick before the faintest of shrugs rolled over his shoulders and he plucked it from her grasp keeping his hand, she noted, at a respectful distance.

He held it between both hands, turning it over and tugging gently on one of the hard light cables, the finger of his prosthetic limb catching again prompting a sound of annoyance from the back of his throat.

She raised a bit on her toes and folded her hands in front of herself as he examined it in a way that made her nervous, and her fingers pulled tighter together as she added a thought, helpfully. “This way is much better, I think.  Cleaner.  Not messy… refined and efficient.” 

“… right.”  His eyes were still pointed down towards the mechanism and his shoulders rose and fell in a movement she would typically have assigned to a sigh, but he’d made no sound.  She could feel the wryness in his voice as it dropped and he glanced up toward her with a blank expression.  “Next time I’m in the outback pickin’ scraps I’ll just pop some air an’ light together, real easy.”

She had said something wrong again, too much maybe, and immediately wished she could take it back.  The look on his face was hard, the popsicle stick would be ridiculous under normal circumstances, but her heart sank as he lifted his hand to pluck it from his mouth between two fingers, delicately, and spoke with somewhat clipped and dry words, all teeth.

“If ya don’t mind, love, I’d likely better get back to work.  Gotta get this hunk of metal _refined_.”

The fingers of his hand flicked against the metal of the prosthetic with a gentle series of clinks and he pressed the hard light mechanism against the workshop table with a sense of finality.  Before she could quite parse what was happening he sat back down in his chair abruptly in a way that couldn’t possibly have failed to jar his injured ribs, but if it had it didn’t show.  His arm was back in the vice before she could gather herself and the welding torch was back on, goggles slipped back down over his eyes.

She felt a bit breathless as he resumed his work and her fingers pressed harder against one-another as she searched the room for an answer.  She found Roadhog, no longer filing away at the metal of his hook but watching her intently, and she supposed she must look distressed as somehow the way he tipped his head in her direction seemed like an attempt at being comforting, and he lifted his broad hand in another wave, this one executed with greater care.  She looked from him back to Jamison before lowering her eyes and murmuring a gentle, “Goodbye” to no one in particular.  She wasn’t even sure it would be audible over the sound of the torch.  The interaction rested heavy on her shoulders as she slipped through the door and began the trek to the training grounds despite how little she felt like working.  She wouldn’t let it be the second time she failed this particular mission.

 

* * *

 

 

It was dark, or at least dusk.  Not feeling very hungry, she had instead made use of what was typically dinner time by practicing in the training grounds, bending light to her will, creating and discarding new structures, surrounded by nothing but the quiet whirr of training bots occasionally wandering by.  It all felt very unfulfilling—it wasn’t giving her any of the joy it typically did and any challenges felt frustrating and defeating rather than like something to be conquered.  Eventually she had sat down with a gentle sigh and lowered her head to her hands to shut out even the gentle sounds of the falling night, attempting to distract herself but instead running the previous events of the day over in her mind.  The junkers on their popsicle rampage, the way Jamison had looked at her when she had begun crafting and the drastic change as she had spoken for reasons she was still having trouble grasping.

She didn’t want to think about it.  She needed a distraction and as she reached into her bag her fingers brushed against the cool metal of the mine he had given her.  She had picked it up from her room almost absentmindedly before coming to the training grounds.  It wasn’t ideal considering it kept her mind on him, but she was a bit desperate for something else to think about than the night’s sense of failure, and so she withdrew the mine from her pack, taking the detonator out with it and holding them in her hands in silence for a moment.  She ran her eyes along the lines of paint for the sixth time she’d received it, or perhaps more that she’d be hesitant to admit, and her gaze turned to the detonator in her hand, noting suddenly as her fingers brushed it that the locked trigger was covered by a piece of paper with a message written on it, presumably as a triple precaution against accidental detonation, all held onto the metal by copious amounts of tape.  It was some comfort to know that she wouldn’t have been able to detonate it without significant effort.

She peered halfheartedly over the writing.

_Stand back 20 feet._

Gods, what exactly had she been carrying in her bag?

She held the mine for a moment longer before making a decision and standing, striding out onto an empty space in the field, and setting it down carefully in the grass.  She counted her paces as she walked back towards the base and, as a precaution, added five more for good measure, and began the task of removing the tape and paper from the detonator.  It was strange, but it helped.  The movement of her fingers forced her mind away from her thoughts as they struggled with the haphazard tape job and once it was free she held the detonator in her hand, slowly flipping the lock upwards as she had seen him do so many times before, revealing the actual detonator button underneath.

Her thumb hesitated just over the trigger as she lifted her eyes to the mine, fairly far away and seeming small and innocuous in the half-dark.  She had absolutely no idea what it would do.  She pressed down on the detonator.

The night lit up with a loud boom echoing across the training ground—loud enough that surely the others in the base would be able to hear unless otherwise distracted—and a shower of brilliant sparks bright enough to force her to narrow her eyes.  Whatever she had been expecting it wasn’t quite that and it took her breath away from the sheer force of it.  The colors were nearly impossible to see as her eyes tried to adjust to the light but she caught flashes of blue and white and orange as the sparks formed a final curtain and died out slowly, glowing as small embers against the charred grass before finally dying out in small puffs of smoke.

She stood there in shock as the night’s quiet suddenly came rushing back, the whirr of the training bots only barely audible as her ears tried to adjust.  She looked down at the detonator in her hand, her thumb still pressed down on the button, and pried it off carefully as if afraid it might somehow manage to blow something _else_ up as well and flipped the cover down slowly. 

It took over a minute for her to move, still out of sorts when she started to walk towards the blast site.  Despite the size of the explosion there was surprisingly little debris and destruction and the burnt grass was limited to the space directly below the mine extending out only a few inches. 

She saw the cover with the painted blue smile only a foot or so away.  Charred and dented.  Covered in soot.  The paint still visible and seemingly undamaged despite it all.  She wasn’t really sure what compelled her to reach down and press a finger tentatively to the metal and then, after finding it to be perfectly cool to the touch, pick it up gingerly in her hands.  It smudged soot across the skin of her fingers and she winced but held on all the same, holding it delicately and carefully away from herself as she headed back towards the base, gathering her things with her left hand, slinging her bag over her shoulder, and slipping back through the door into the brightly lit corridor with a slow, grounding breath.  Her appetite had still not returned and so she turned her steps towards her quarters, her mind wandering over the very strange end to a very strange day.

At any rate maybe she should thank him.  It had certainly done the job of taking her mind off of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little angsty but whoops :P if you're interested, the next chapter is gonna/should have a lot to do with a line from the wombats song [greek tragedy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk18jZpx4Nk). try to guess which one.
> 
> also, please please let me know if things are getting redundant, I do have a plan here to wrap up in about 15 chapters and there is a deeper purpose to this chapter but still.
> 
> To be honest feedback on this chapter miiiiighhhttt slightly affect how following chapters go (to a degree) so please leave feedback if you have it but I do have a fairly firm idea of where I'm going!


	10. Chapter 10

Two days later they were called out on another mission, the first one since Ilios, and everyone had been restless, not particularly helped by the strange atmosphere that had developed around them.  Alright, two of them.  Alright, fine.  Basically just him.

The first job since Jamison had been stuck in the med bay and he was told he couldn’t go.  He hadn’t taken it well.  After Mercy had taken a look at him and decided he wasn’t healed up enough for active combat he spent the next hour whining and ranting and threatening anyone who would listen but Winston and Mercy refused to change their minds.  It had damaged the scraps of goodwill he’d stitched together for Winston, although Mercy didn’t suffer too much for it.  Soon enough most of the team had packed up in the loading bay and taken off.

They’d nearly left him at the base alone.  It would have been a terrible idea, as evidenced by what he managed to do while Roadhog and Torbjörn were there to watch him.  He’d behaved reasonably well until Torbjorn decided it was safe to go focus on other things—a period of time lasting a grand total of about half an hour—leaving the two junkers to do whatever they wanted.  And there were quite a few things he wanted to do.  Nearly the instant Torbjörn had disappeared down the corridor with a stern gaze and a command to Roadhog to ‘keep an eye on him’, Jamison turned to Roadhog, closing the gap between them.

“C’mon mate, let’s go cause some mayhem, yeah?”  His voice was a low murmur, but it grew louder with each word as if he was losing control of it, and it ended in a high-pitched laugh that bubbled from his throat, unstoppable.  He had already turned to move past the other junker down the corridor away from Torbjörn, his hands stuffed in his pockets, the things already bulging with materials he had apparently specifically packed for the day’s work.  “While the cat’s away the mouse will play an’ all that.”

A deep sigh drifted from Roadhog’s mask and he followed behind Jamison at a short distance, his voice rumbling in a measured tone with the words.  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Jamison had developed a bounce to his step for the first time since his injuries and turned, walking backwards, watching his friend with one gently narrowed eye and a lopsided grin plastered across his face.  “An’ why not, my fine friend?  Ya think we’re gonna get in trouble?”  His jaw was set ever so slightly, making the grin turn into something like bared teeth for a moment before he shook it off.  “The big ape comes after us, we tell him where to stick it, yeah?  ‘Sides, I’m not doin’ any real damage.”  His voice had lowered to something conciliatory but clearly annoyed as he pulled more cherry bombs from his pockets, his teeth already around a lighter, muffling his voice.  “Just ‘avin a bit of fun, nothin’ to worry about.”

A cherry bomb was pulled to the lighter, now lit in his left hand, before he glanced back down the hallway where Torbjörn had disappeared and thought better of it, slipping the firecracker away and back in his pocket.  Roadhog lifted a large hand to scratch his own back in a way that seemed somehow thoughtful and shrugged after a moment with another sigh, this one resigned and a bit stifled in its helplessness.  It was probably better to let him get it out of his system.  It usually was, so long as it caused no real harm.  “Yeah, alright.”

They spent the next hour setting booby traps.  At first he’d tried taking a crowbar to the door to Winston’s quarters but Roadhog stopped him so he settled for wedging a few cherry bombs into the track the door slid open on, lighting them and leaving a few satisfying scorch marks on the formerly pristine white edges.  That was satisfying at least.  He outfitted about half the doors on the base with firecrackers that exploded with an enhanced bang when they were opened, deciding against doing it to all of them lest it ruin the surprise and spoil the uncertainty.  He’d rather keep everyone on their toes.  He wedged cherry bombs along the top of a randomly selected series of them with a paste that would ignite from a lighter lit when the motion of the door triggered it, lighting all of them and dropping them on or near whoever had walked through.  Toilet seats, cereal boxes, nothing was safe. 

Roadhog made an excuse to leave at one point and spent another half hour removing the worst of them while Jamison retreated to the training grounds, wracking the base with a series of loud explosions from hails of grenades and mine detonations until, apparently, he wore himself out, or at least ran out of things to explode.

Roadhog found him in the workshop an hour or so later, working halfheartedly on a new rip-tire on the floor, probably twisting his torso too much in the process.  Despite how close he was to being fully healed, Roadhog picked him up by his shoulders and literally dragged him despite his protests to one of the chairs and hooked the chest brace around him as a physical reminder that he should be resting.  It made him feel like a dog in a recovery cone.  It turned him more sullen than before but just as restless, and without a project to work on that wouldn’t draw Roadhog’s disapproving stare he’d ended up leaning against a workbench table, the brace stubbornly removed, arms crossed over his chest as his mind drifted to other unwelcome things while Roadhog read a magazine he’d found in the rec room, one large hand holding a half-eaten ice cream sandwich.

Jamison sat there apparently thinking over something that was bothering him, all belabored sighs that seemed like a demand for attention, and it wasn’t long before Roadhog looked up at him and folded the magazine away.  It was pointless not to.  He wouldn’t get any reading done, otherwise.  Once the large junker’s attention was on him, Jamison’s eyes flicked towards him in a way that wasn’t subtle and he almost immediately began talking, the prosthetic arm curled around his abdomen and the left one gesturing out in irritation, beginning the conversation as if they’d already been having it.

“Why d’ya think she said it, anyway?”

Roadhog let the silence go on for a beat before rumbling his voice over the words, careful to keep his tone even.  “Who?”  He knew who.  He asked anyway.

Jamison’s voice was painted with annoyance as he replied.  “ _Satya_.  Keep up, mate.  Why d’ya think she said that bit about refinement?”

“Not sure.  You got any ideas?”

“Wouldn’t have _asked_ if I did.”  But the prompt seemed to have set Jamison’s mind off anyway, and he chewed on his lip for a moment before muttering agitatedly.  “Called it ‘sloppy’.”  He pushed off of the workbench, pacing to work off some of the restless energy he’d built up despite the earlier satisfaction of setting traps and the anticipation of seeing the team’s reactions as they went off.  “All that stuff about how great it is an’ all that.  That hard light stuff.  All _refined_ and better.”  His eyebrows raised as he lifted a metal finger to point at Roadhog, voice tripping over the words matter-of-factly at first and then fading into a quieter insecurity as he held the prosthetic arm out for Roadhog to observe, a whine taking over his voice.  “Looks fine to me.  What’s the problem anyway?  Bloody well gets the job done, never had any complaints.”

Roadhog shrugged and remained silent and the lack of verbal response prompted Jamison to keep going, throwing his hands up in the air and pacing harder, somehow. 

“Said all that stuff an’ she didn’t even seem happy about it!  Just went on her way.  _You_ saw it.”  He gave a pointed look to Roadhog, who nodded again.  Jamison had heard her say goodbye.  He hadn’t missed the tone.  It had been bothering him ever since, not quite as much as her comments, but there all the same.  “Seemed pretty upset, actually.”

He stopped both speaking and pacing and pressed his lips together, lifting both of his hands to drag backwards through his hair, frustrated and harsh.  The sound he made matched it in tone, a strained, wordless thing, his voice a bit more subdued after.  “Startin’ to wonder if she didn’t mean anythin’ by it?”  The glance towards Roadhog didn’t give him any answers despite the pained look of it and he shook it off physically before going on.  “Set off the fireworks, anyway.”

He left his hands atop his head as his steps slowed, eyes on the ground.  The explosion had been audible throughout the base, subtle but there for anyone listening.  He’d know the particular sound signature anywhere.  Couldn’t miss it.

Roadhog adjusted his body, turning the chair to sit on it backwards, leaning forward on his arms pressed down on the backrest.  “Maybe she didn’t.  Mean anything by it, I mean.”

It was a thought that had occurred to Jamison a while ago, ever since the fireworks actually, but he’d been feeling far too stubborn to really consider it.  He preferred to let it eat away at him for two days until some other annoyance was enough to set him off.  He made the sound again, the frustrated one, and walked loudly and resolutely to a whiteboard that had been installed on the wall, meant for drawing up plans.  He was repurposing it for something else.

Maybe it would be better if he viewed it as a puzzle or a piece of machinery to be fixed.  Maybe it would be easier to wrap his head around it, why she’d done all the things she did… for the past few weeks, actually.  Everything from the kiss on forward made no sense.  He picked up a marker and tapped it thoughtfully against his lips, squinting at the wide open space as though hoping it might fill itself.  He wasn’t quite speaking to Roadhog when he went on, and although the large junker was still listening he’d opened the magazine again, glancing up every so often and offering a grunt or small sound of acknowledgment or agreement as Jamison worked.

“Alright.  Let’s get this sorted out.” 

* * *

 

Forty-five minutes later there were very few words on the board and a lot of empty space.

Under the heading “Good” he had written out a few things in frankly terrible handwriting:  
Ice blocks  
Juggling?  
????  
fireworks maybe

Under the heading “Bad” he had done the same:  
Hitting walls at high velocity  
Bringing up “the thing”  
Not doing what Mercy says

The ‘bad’ category had ended with a final bullet point, written small and smeared out to the point of being completely ineligible.  He was still tapping the marker agitatedly against his lips.  Roadhog appeared to have fallen asleep so Jamison yelled out toward him.  “Oi, Roadie!”  When he got no response he pursed his lips together and tossed the marker at him, the hit rousing Roadhog with a low, sleepy growl.  It was enough to make Jamison laugh nervously, and he flashed the other junker with a nervous, apologetic little smile that was short-lived.

“Can ya think of anythin’ else?”

The large man glanced towards the board and took a deep breath, holding in a sigh.  “Pretty specific.”

“I know.  Good, right?”

Roadhog grunted and scratched his lower back again, rumbling out another suggestion.  “She doesn’t like it when you throw things at people.”

Confusion moved over Jamison’s face, screwing his lips into an odd turn and narrowing his eyes.  “Really?  Don’t remember that.”

Roadhog picked up the marker in a large fist and threw it back at the lanky junker, his voice low with the reply.  “Write it down, Jamison.”

Jamison groaned, loudly and with far too much emotion, trudging towards the whiteboard and scribbling it onto the surface, looking uncertain the entire time, as if he weren’t sure if it was correct or not.  Once it was there he stepped back and looked over the list again, his hands drawing back through his hair once more, making it look more wild than before and staying there, stationed at the back of his head as he stared at the words, lost.  “This ain’t helpin’.  I’m givin’ up.”  He put the marker back where it belonged and slouched as he so often did, wandering aimlessly back towards his work bench.  Roadhog didn’t stop him and instead returned to his chair with a grunt.

The mechanism Satya had crafted sat on the hard surface, glowing a gentle blue-ish white, marred slightly by the dirt and soot that came naturally to the workspace and he looked at it thoughtfully, considered it, grudgingly.  His eyes flicked from it to Roadhog who seemed busy again, his teeth gnawing at the inside of his cheek with restless indecision before he sat down slowly, picking the thing up between his fingers, forehead creased with uncertainty as he curled it in his fist. 

* * *

 

 Two days after that he was finally let out on another mission.  He’d had nearly no interaction with Satya, or with anyone really.  Instead he’d holed up in the workshop as usual, working on replacing all the mines he had used and stocking up on grenades.

It was in Egypt, and as ever the hot sun beat town at them as they set up a control point.  Satya and Torbjörn took up the defense, Satya placing the first line while Torbjörn provided backup, Reinhardt at the point, and Mercy at his side.  A portal had been set up behind a sandstone corner on the off-chance they’d need to return to base a short distance away.  Jamison supposed he was more or less there to blow things up, wherever that fit in the picture, and he was fine with it.  The place was mostly ruins anyway, which might serve as an explanation as to why he was allowed to go.

They all stood around the excavation site uneasily, some resting in the shade, Reinhardt miraculously not dying of heat stroke out in the sun in sight of any potential intruders to draw fire and hopefully dissuade them.  Ostensibly they’d been hired to keep guard on a team of archaeologists digging around in the ruins after some treasure or another but even the science team themselves had seemed pretty nervous and by all appearances expected trouble.

Jamison was savoring every second of it, except for the fact that everything seemed empty and quiet save for the occasional gust of wind whipping sand against them and the sound of scraping from the archaeology team, the few of them who were aboveground.  The rest of them had set up shop below, doing he wasn’t sure what.  It had been too quiet for too long and he sauntered out of the pit towards the cliff that fell down into the open ocean before the breeze picked up again, the smell of the sea on it, and he abruptly and quickly changed his mind and scrambled back down into the pit.  There wasn’t really any need for him to be up there anyway.  He crouched in his typical pose for battle purposes and braced the grenade launcher against his right shoulder, held in his right hand, and out of a sense of complete boredom shot three grenades in the air.  They made a satisfying _thunk_ as they travelled down and out of the barrel, the tire that gave them their velocity clicking gently with the effort of launching each one.  He’d intended them to go into the ocean, but all three bounced just before the sharp drop-off and exploded loudly in the sand just outside their defense point, something that gave him a sense of pleasure and ease in the quiet.

Mercy called out to him, though, chiding him in a way that would normally irritate him, but he’d decided she wasn’t too terrible so he complied, trudging back towards the shade with a strained noise of frustration, the launcher lowered as he reloaded it with some of the grenades from one of the tubes strapped to his harness.

It was quiet for quite a while.  Everyone was a bit scattered after having attended to their different tasks and each one of their attention lapsed in the sun by the time an ominous sound began building, echoing against the walls of the pit and growing louder, the clank of metal and the sound of feet sifting through the sound… a lot of feet.  Torbjörn’s turrent whirred quietly to life and Jamison lifted his head, shifting his weight to his feet as he perked up to the sound of it.  Reinhardt and Mercy did as well, each of them bracing together as Jamison took his place behind Reinhardt with an expectant grin slowly creeping onto his features.  Satya and Torbjörn were out of sight but no doubt at the ready.

“Sounds like company!”  He laughed, that high-pitched sound both terse and excited.

A moment later a loud hiss broke through the background noise and grew, louder and menacingly in the span of less than a second.  Reinhardt rose his shield just in time.

A rocket slammed into the shield with a huge amount of force, and while the thing held Jamison could see the cracks at the corner, small but revealing.  Another hiss sang loud in his ears and he turned his attention to the pit in front of them with gritted teeth, hands working quickly, well-practiced over the weapon in his hand, a series of grenades quickly launching with that beautiful sound into the air above one of the ramps leading down into their location.  Just as they neared their target three enemy soldiers appeared, and then immediately disappeared as the grenades hit with a satisfying, shaking explosion.  His manic laughter was drowned out by the second rocket slamming into Reinhardt’s shields.

“Stay behind me!  We need to take that one out!”  Reinhardt’s voice boomed out over the pit and the comms as Jamison looked up, the form of someone in a winged and armored suit suddenly blocking out the sun.  And a rocket loaded in the wide barrel perched on their shoulder.

“On it, mate!”  His voice was harsh and strained as he aimed the grenade launcher up and aimed carefully, lobbing another series of three up but taking care they wouldn’t fall too close.  The figure evaded all three of them as the third rocket crashed into Reinhardt’s shield and it cracked dangerously close to the center.  Jamison made a loud nose of frustration that ground against his throat and took another step forward, aiming again before a gentle hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him back behind the wavering shield.  Mercy held onto him as Torbjörn’s turret whirred into action, chasing the armored figure out of the sky with a hail of bullets.

They enemy soldiers were returning fire and Reinhardt’s shield was nearly finished, but the opposition was on the ground and Jamison couldn’t be happier.  Mercy’s hand slipped from his shoulder as he ripped out of her grasp with another hail of grenades at the soldiers attempting to flank them on their left, whipping a mine after them, the grenades exploding in rapid succession and sending them scattering and a few to the ground.  The mine followed after.  It took care of the ones still moving as he pressed down on the detonator.  He hopped back closer to the ruins as he reloaded, calling out loud enough to be heard over the chaos.  “Lovely day, isn’t it?”  Reinhardt’s shield had failed, but Jamison and Mercy were relatively safe tucked behind sandstone columns as he dashed forward, Reinhardt pinning a group of them against the opposite wall and dispatching the rest with violent swings from his hammer.

It was a simple enough battle, and one he wasn’t worried about.  They had a good balance and they had prepared well.  A group attempting to flank them on their right was hit with four beams of white light and a satisfying, sustained _zap_ noise that he couldn’t help but enjoy as they were brought down by Satya’s turrets.

The rockets were hissing again.  It was a new suit, a different color, and he pressed himself against a column as Reinhardt’s shield went up again, recharged.  Another rocket, suddenly, from the other side.  He and Mercy scattered as the second one slammed into the column that had been between the two of them, spraying debris and crumbling sandstone from where it made contact, the heat of it briefly rough against his cheek.

“Someone mind taking out the flyin’ ones?”  His weapons weren’t very well suited to it, and as another rocket appeared in his field of view he rolled to the side and it slammed into the ground too close to where he’d been standing.  Another volley of grenades landed one against a wing and the form in the sky faltered before a blast of white light made contact and blasted the form backwards, likely far enough to send it over the cliff.  Satya was on the other side of a pillar and he glanced toward her before returning his attention to the soldiers who were suddenly swarming from all three sides, held mostly at bay by Reinhardt and Torbjörn and Satya’s turrets but too many getting through.  It was still manageable, but more dangerous than most of them would prefer.  Jamison didn’t mind.

A flanking force was partially taken out with a mine and he raised the grenade launcher to take care of the rest of them and pulled the trigger.  Or tried to.  He could feel the metal lock and strain and his eyes darted down the fingers in surprise and frustration, the distraction was enough for a few soldiers to turn the corner.  They somehow failed to see him.  They didn’t fail to see Satya.  Their weapons went up and he closed the distance quickly, shoving his shoulder into one and—when the other turned to focus on him—slammed his head into the soldier’s in a headbutt.

He immediately regretted it. 

He saw stars as the soldier went down and staggered back, grenade launcher still in his right hand and his left coming to his head and in the brief lapse in noise his voice came out rough and loud.  “Fuckin’ ‘ell, that hurts!  Shouldn’t’ve done that.”  He was turning to look towards Satya when the rest of the soldiers rounded the corner, guns drawn, and he sucked in a breath.  There were a lot of them.  And he couldn’t get his hand to pull the trigger on the grenade launcher.

The gentle blue of the teleporter caught his eye between himself in Satya.  Seemed like a good enough option. 

* * *

 

Satya had taken in the situation and braced for whatever was coming, but as half of the soldiers trained their weapons on Jamison her hands spun a desperate shield around him as a hail of gunfire rattled against the sandstone and the sound of debris shot free of the wall pinging past their ears.  The sound of a rocket hissing and growing louder interrupted the ping of bullets.

There wasn’t any time to think.  Jamison’s form was already curling itself around her and she felt the world enveloping her in darkness and sound and her feet becoming unsteady as his arms held her firmly and twisted them both in a desperate dive for the teleporter.  Everything flashed a bright blue as the world shifted and turned and her feet were no longer under her, tripping instead over something solid.  They’d drifted apart from one-another in transport and she heard his body hit the ground with a quiet ‘ouf’ and the clatter of the grenade launcher dragged against the floor as it finally dislodged from his prosthetic hand.  The sounds helped her orient herself and she pressed her hands out firmly, both palms and knees finding the floor just in time to keep herself from landing squarely on top of him.

The both of them were breathing heavily from the adrenaline of the escape and the loud hiss of a rocket caused them to tense in unison before the portal simply flickered out of existence, the clipped sound of an explosion echoing in the empty space of their makeshift base.  The light was somewhat low, likely due to the artillery fire which seemed to have dismantled some of the lighting fixtures and left the room bathed in a dim light and she looked down at him while she attempted to catch her breath.

He was bathed in sweat and debris, chips broken off of the columns they’d taken shelter behind and dust picked up from the wind riding the rain of bullets and soot on his hands from his own explosives.  She had no doubt she was in a similar state given the white flecks of ash she could see in her own hair.  Her hands were on either side of his shoulders, knees pressed hard into the ground on either side of his hips, her hair in disarray and pooling down her shoulders in a dark curtain that brushed against his chest, her clothing in a tangle below her knees, draped over him and meeting the floor between his legs.

His breath was hard but slowing and his eyes, widened and lost at first, closed in and focused on her own as she stared back at him in turn.  Somehow she could still see the freckles along the bridge of his nose and a pink color had crept in between them under the dust, barely visible but completely fascinating and she felt her own cheeks burning with the realization that they were so close, only inches away.  He’d taken on a look that had become too familiar ever since King’s Row, that mix of surprise and terror and her eyes flitted across his lips. 

The both of them were still trying to calm their breath and suddenly very aware of their position.  She pushed herself slowly upwards with lowered eyes, her hands leaving the floor and one of them tucking strands of hair behind her ear.  It was a disaster of course, but it was all she could think to do as she leaned back slowly and carefully, still not standing.  Her voice was nearly a whisper as she mumbled, “Sorry…”

“No worries.”  His own voice sounded harsh and he shifted with a grunt to prop himself up on his elbows, his knee bending to accommodate the position.  She froze suddenly, her eyes drifting to her left to his prosthetic arm where she noticed a faint glint of blue between the metal struts and couldn’t hold back the gasp that passed between her lips.  Her _mechanism_ , the one she’d made in the workshop.  The breath went out of her and she felt gravity pull her down, sitting abruptly and reaching for the prosthetic arm, pulling it towards herself.  He partially collapsed under her as she stole one of his supports with another ‘ouf!’ and a muttered ‘christ’ of surprise, having to scramble to realign his weight above his left elbow with a look of absolute confusion and she thought mild panic as she settled against him, her weight resting against his lower abdomen.  Too focused to notice much other than the cool feel of the metal in her hands and the blue glint underneath it.  Her voice was soft and nearly inaudible.

“My construct...”

He swallowed, the metal fingers flexing and locking up in a stunted, straining motion as he looked from them back to her features with a weak, apologetic looking attempt at a smile that fell flat.  “Yeah... thought I might give it a try.”  He tossed his head, features pulled into a wince as he tried to shift his weight under her and failed, well and truly trapped.  His voice was a mumble.  “Good piece of equipment.  Didn’t want it to go to waste.”  The fingers tried to flex and locked up again and his eyes flicked back to it in disappointment.  “… might not’ve made the connections right, though.”

Her breath escaped in a quiet laugh tinged with a relief she couldn’t define and she smiled at him, a beaming, strong thing, the metal still cradled between her hands, and despite his obvious confusion his lips curled in a crooked little smile of his own as she shook her head, eyebrows raising in a look of appeasement.

“No!  No… I think the mechanism was incomplete, I didn’t expect—“

“Yeah.  Added some bits, put in a wire or two.  Should’ve offset the force.”

She pulled the arm closer to herself to better peer through the casing with one eye, causing him to grunt as she tugged on the rest of his body with it, a fact to which she was completely insensate, as she was to most other things in the moment, her voice lowered to a thoughtful murmur.

“Perhaps the two must be better integrated before they can function correctly.”  Clearly lost in the thought and examination, her voice went on for a moment with an engrossed tone.  “It seems as though they move differently with one-another than they would if it was the same material.”  Finished and lost in thought her weight distributed near his hips, and while it likely wasn’t completely uncomfortable he grunted, very careful to not let the somewhat demanding position to pull his arm away from her grasp.

Her voice was a bit distant, still thoughtful, nearly inaudible.  “… it’s very impressive.  What you’ve done.”

His breath had calmed and he was looking up at her strangely, smiling that asymmetric smile that seemed more relaxed but no less lost.  Her mind had wandered as she looked down at him, hands still cradled over his arm and weight shifted forward a bit to accommodate her grip, her own expression more or less mirroring his own until a voice pierced her absolute distraction, scratchy and unfocused over the comm.  It was Mercy.

“Satya!  Are you alright?  Where’s Jamison?  We have the situation under control.”

Her eyes had darted upwards and straight in front of herself with a sudden sinking feeling of mortification, her jaw slack.  Against her better judgment her gaze crept down to him with a certain amount of dread at what she might find.  He was staring back at her with wide eyes and his jaw set, the pink on his cheeks having bled into the tips of his ears and she took a sudden, deep breath as she dropped his arm abruptly, an exceptionally nervous and uncomfortable and apologetic laugh bursting from her and leaving her breathless, or at least contributing to it.  “I’m so sorry...”

“Nah love, no worries, honestly.”  He was speaking through sharply gritted teeth though as she scrambled to her feet and attempted to right herself as much as was possible, running her hands quickly through her hair and dusting debris from her legs as he finally got to his feet beside her looking dazed, his hair mussed, staring blankly forwards.

“Satya?”  Mercy’s voice crackled in again, sounding a bit more concerned.

“Oh!  Yes, we’re both here, and we’re fine.”  Her voice trembled with remaining adrenaline as she spoke through the comm and she breathed hard for a moment, willing herself to something more calm but it wasn’t entirely working.  She swallowed as she took a glance at him but his expression hadn’t changed.  In a way it was like when she had found him in the workshop, half asleep.

Despite the fact that her hair was already as orderly as she could make it she tucked it behind an ear again, shuffling where she stood and curling her gauntlet and fingers together in front of herself, surprised that she could find her voice enough to take the lead.  “We should probably rejoin the team.”

He leaned down automatically to grab the grenade launcher from the floor with his left hand, nodding and murmuring a quiet, “Yeah.  Right.”  She thought it best to lead and did so, and he followed in silence as they padded their way out of the base and back towards the excavation pit.  They were both clearly in shock, possibly for more than one reason, and both absolutely filthy from the experience, and Mercy embraced them both in relief as they found the group once again.

“Thank goodness!  I was concerned.  I’m so sorry.  There was so much rocket fire.”  The both of them mumbled their various appeasements as she looked them over, approving of Satya and giving Jamison a quick verdict of general approval save for two dark bruises on his back, marks, she supposed, from bullets hitting the surface of Satya’s shields wrapped around his body.  He blinked, brow furrowed, and glanced towards her for a moment before his eyes darted away as Mercy chided him gently.  “Be more careful next time!”

They were both completely silent the entire trip back to base as the others chatted, although Satya did manage a few pleasant smiles and nods of acknowledgment as Mercy commented on or asked her the occasional question.  Jamison did very little other than stare straight ahead, jaw set, muscles holding it tightly shut, eyes wide and staring straight forward.

She was filthy and exhausted and felt as though as soon as she was clean she would fall into bed for a solid night’s sleep, but a large part of her intervened, suggesting instead that it might be a very long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please look at [this fanart](http://crayoncat-art.tumblr.com/post/146407459179/oops-aka-the-moment-jamison-knew-he-was-a) (not fanart for me and this fic! just for the ship, made independently) by crayon cat because it's perfect.
> 
> this was probably my favorite chapter to write. I like to think Roadhog was reading Home and Garden or something.


	11. Chapter 11

She absolutely _had_ to get clean.

Somehow the adrenaline of the experience had allowed Satya to almost forget how filthy she had become during the mission, but once they returned to base she looked down at the specks of dirt and sand on her arms in horror, not to mention the marks and telling soot on her uniform—and made her way immediately to the communal locker rooms, grateful to find them empty as the others finished recovering their things, re-organizing, busying themselves with other tasks.  Few of them had gotten as dirty as she and Jamison had at any rate, and she had suspicions he might not be visiting the locker room in a while, or potentially even not at all.  She really couldn’t be sure.

She immediately felt better upon stepping under the stream of warm water, her gauntlet already cleaned—the first thing she had attended to—but dirty clothes left carefully placed on the personal bench outside to be washed later, and closed her eyes with a slow sigh as she could feel the debris washing off of her shoulders.  In the moment, it was as close to heavenly as she could get.  Taking care of the dirt and sand and soot was an absolute necessity before she could even stop to think, so she took to the task, her toes curling against the shower slippers she wore in a restless version of relief as the soap left her feeling finally clean.

Her mind was free to drift and it went to obvious places.  Jamison pinned underneath her, the look on his face before she fully realized her position.  But more importantly, his _arm_.  Her eyes cracked open carefully to look at the tiled wall without really seeing it as she recalled the faint glint of blue nearly hidden by the orange-tinted metal struts, incomplete and interwoven with thin metal wires in a makeshift part of cobbled-together design.  Haphazard and unsightly.  Far from perfect.  And, she reminded herself, not fully functional, but somehow pleasing to her nonetheless.  It was strange to her that he had bothered to try; it was undoubtedly more effort to use her partially-completed mechanism than simply make his usual repairs and certainly posed a greater challenge and carried more risk.  There was no real reason for him to have adopted it into the design, and she was having trouble making sense of it.

Instead, her mind shifted to the mechanics of it again and she closed her eyes, lifting her hands as though preparing to craft something, twisting her fingers, her head tilting thoughtfully with the motion.  She would need to take a better look at his arm with the internal machinery fully exposed.  There really was no other way, and beyond the satisfaction that she knew would come with succeeding in weaving a complete piece there was a flame of excitement in her at the simple idea of integrating the two materials in an unknown design, however strange.  Different.  But compatible, she was certain, provided she could fully understand how the two interacted with each other.  And a part of her liked the simple idea of helping him, as well.  She had been enjoying the newfound habit of bonding with teammates, and it was easy to tell herself that this was no different.

At any rate, it was a challenge.  And a suitable distraction, both from the all-too-familiar focus of her mind on the way his body had moved with each breath and the new perspective on his angular features, new shadows cast in the dim light as she looked down to him, and the more difficult to consider fact of the two dark bruises on his back, perfect circles darkest in the center, like bullseyes.  Her mind flitted to the way he had thrown himself recklessly and unthinking against the soldiers who turned the corner, guns drawn, the headbutt that had made her wince, and the rapid rattle of bullets streaming towards them.

He could have been killed.  She could have as well.  It was lucky that there had been a moment of cooperation in the chaos.

It was too much to think about after a long day, so she shook herself gently before turning off the water and padding out into the curtained, personal enclosure, drying herself carefully, pulling water from her long hair before wrapping it above her head in a towel.  She slipped on a clean uniform—she was often loathe to wear anything else in public, but it also gave her a sense of control she sorely needed—before gingerly opening the curtain.  The locker room was empty, thank the gods.  Sharing the space was less than ideal.  Taking her things carefully in hand she moved over to the mirrors, placing them on the counter, removing the towel, going about the task of combing her hair as she gazed at her reflection, every strand in its place.  The action itself was soothing, and by the time she was satisfied with the way each fine thread laid she took a deep breath and collected her things, moving towards the door.  There was no sound from the other side so pressed it open and stepped out into the corridor and she began the walk to her quarters.

A unique cadence of steps built in an echo down the corridor behind her as she went with the sound of muttered cursing following it.  It was clearly Jamison, and the heavy steps dulling the sound of everything else suggested Roadhog was with him. 

Jamison’s voice drifted to her, unwelcome and muffled by the distance.  It felt like she was spying on them for a second time, however unintentionally, and it ate at her a bit and left her feeling uncomfortable.

“Alright, alright, I said I was goin’ didn’t I?  Might have a bung leg but I can walk myself.  Day like I had, seems kinda cruel to bail me up and ship me off unwillingly, don’t it?”

She could hear the low, undefined rumble of Roadhog’s voice followed by Jamison’s once more, dripping with sullenness.

“Yeah, I know, mate.  Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

They were clearly headed to the locker room and she could guess why.  Despite his generally dirty state of being, the mission in Egypt had left him exceptionally so, and perhaps the trail of sand and soot he’d been leaving was too much even for his friend.  She was grateful she was headed away from the two; even just seeing Jamison felt as though it would be too much in that moment, and she thanked the gods she had left the locker room when she did, and that she had only overhead such a small snippet of conversation.  She retreated hastily, unable to quite relax until she was back in her quarters.

 

When the door slid shut behind her she uttered a quiet sigh and leaned against it, pressing her back to the cool, solid surface with closed eyes.  The respite from the shower was short-lived.  Her nerves were still on end and she felt restless and somehow unfulfilled in the quiet of the room, her brow creased in disappointment until she realized suddenly that Jamison being in the shower would give her freedom to roam the base at will without risk of seeing him.  She opened her eyes with a subdued sense of actual excitement, lying her folded clothes on top of the dresser for later maintenance.  She hesitated but replaced the gauntlet on her arm as well, immediately breathing easier for it, the feel of it cool and firm against her skin and imparting a sense of normalcy and comfort.

She slipped out the door before realizing she didn’t even have anywhere she particularly wanted to go.

It was late, although not terribly so, and most of the team often seemed to stay out later after a mission, particularly stressful ones.  The restlessness was sometimes hard to shake.  Still, the night was quiet save for the occasional voice in the hallway, and although she’d come to enjoy the company of much of them it seemed better to find a quiet corner.  Ultimately she found herself in the kitchen with a kettle on, preparing a blend of tulsi and chamomile in hopes that the gentle tea might relax her.  The click of footsteps in the corridor pulled her from the ritual of steeping the leaves; whoever it was passed the kitchen door before coming to a stop and turning back after a moment’s hesitation, and soon enough she heard Mercy’s voice as the woman gently nudged the door open with a warm smile of pleasant surprise.

“Ah!  Satya!  I’m so pleased I’ve found you.  Are you having tea?”

It was impossible not to return the woman’s smile and she didn’t bother to fight it, returning her eyes to the tea quickly after.  “Yes… would you like a cup?”

“Oh!  That would be lovely, thank you.”

Mercy’s timing had been perfect; Satya poured a cup for her, offering it with great care before pulling a cup from the cabinet and pouring some for herself.  Even just holding the tea made her feel warm and she brought it to her chin as she leaned back against the counter, breathing in the aroma deeply and releasing a quiet sigh before she felt quite fit for conversation.

“Were you looking for me?”

Mercy was holding her own cup close to her chest and took a similar posture as shook her head softly.  “Oh no, nothing like that.  Though I was hoping to speak to you.  We didn’t get much of an opportunity on the flight back.”

Moreso that she had been practically unresponsive, she thought.  Mercy must have noticed more than Satya had realized.  Perhaps that was the reason for her concern.  Her fingers lined the edge of the cup absent-mindedly.

 “Of course.  What did you want to speak about?”

“Simply to check in.  I’m afraid today’s mission was more intense than we expected, and you and Jamison may have experienced the worst of it.  I’d intended to ask once we landed, but Reinhardt needed my assistance…”

Satya tried to hold back the cringing feeling at the sound of his name but shook her head gently at the apology.  “There’s no need for you to be concerned.  I believe the stress has passed, now.  A good shower can work miracles.”

“That is a relief to hear.  The both of you seemed to be in a bit of shock, understandable given what happened.”  Satya was conspicuously silent, staring down into her cup of tea.  “I was hoping to speak with Jamison as well.  He disappeared before I had the opportunity to check to be sure his wounds were still healing well, particularly given that we were more active on this mission than intended.  It’s not too great of a concern, but it’s hard enough to get him into the infirmary that it seemed worth the trouble to try to find him.”

Mercy, thankfully, did not ask outright if Satya knew where he might be and simply sipped on her tea with a look of satisfaction and the same serene smile she wore so often.  It was very calming, as was the tea, and Satya could feel the exhaustion of the day finally beginning to sink into her bones.  She wasn’t sure why she didn’t mention that Jamison’s likely location except that she was loathe to admit she knew anything about his status at all.

They finished their tea in pleasant conversation, Satya asking after Reinhardt and Torbjörn, both of whom had also escaped unscathed.  She learned very little about their attackers—apparently their identity was still largely unknown.  Winston was apparently looking more closely into the details and Mercy didn’t seem terribly concerned.  At any rate, her tone suggested it was perhaps a conversation for another day. 

Satya felt refreshed and satisfied as she left the kitchen with a genial wave goodbye to Mercy, both of them splitting off in different directions down the corridor.  Overall it had been a genuinely enjoyable time spent with a team member, and the ease with which she found herself speaking with Mercy left her feeling soothed and satisfied.

She hadn’t thought about Jamison since Mercy had mentioned him, and managed not to until she found herself walking back past the locker rooms.  It was quiet given the hour, and through the door she could hear the faint sound of water running, loud as if falling as if in large sheets—a shower, not a faucet.  She had no idea who else would be awake at the hour, let alone showering.  The only person she knew typically kept late hours was Jamison.  And he was the last person she knew had entered the locker room… with the apparent intent of showering.

She would have simply walked by except for Mercy’s words clawing their way back to her mind: Mercy was concerned, he might still be injured, she hadn’t been able to check on him.  Satya’s feet came to a slow stop and she closed her eyes, her hands curled into fists at her sides, and took a hesitant, deep breath.  Irritation welled up in her from somewhere, a frustration that had been growing for the entire evening, and perhaps for longer.  All she had wanted was to escape him and she couldn’t, and she felt herself irrationally angry at him as a result.  It wasn’t as though he had been following her… in fact generally quite the opposite.  It just seemed as though whenever she needed respite the most he was there, somehow.

But she _was_ worried, much as she hated to admit it.  By her judgment he had been in the locker room for nearly an hour or perhaps more, and the sound of the water was low and steady, unbroken, with no indication of any movement from whatever was under it.  She crept to the locker room door and paused to listen again, wanting to be sure before she dedicated herself to walking into something she wanted nothing to do with.  But her earlier observations were true and her brow creased gently with genuine concern.  There was no escaping it.  She pushed open the door, peering through the crack to be sure there were no occupants easily visible and, after finding none, she slipped through the door hesitantly and entered, the empty space opening up in front of her.

Uneasiness sat in the pit of her stomach as she moved closer to the source of the sound, dismayed to find that she had been correct on all counts.  Whoever was in the shower was absolutely silent.  Despite not wanting to, there wasn’t much else to do but to say something.  Her hands curled in front of her chest, balled into fists protectively as if it might keep whatever was coming at bay.  
  
“… Junkrat?”  She had to say it loudly enough that it might be heard despite the fact that her throat constricted in rebellion and it rang out clearly in the open space, too loud.  The reply was almost immediate but hesitant in its inflection, with the exact same intonation, mirroring hers.

“… Symmetra?”  It was Jamison, clearly, and a silence followed that made her shift her weight uneasily, not sure of what else to say.  He was there and he was alive, ostensibly fine, and she thought she could determine a bit of humor in his voice.  She wished she could just leave but knew that wasn’t an option.

“Are you alright?”

There was a brief silence that made her strangely nervous before he answered.

“Bloody ‘ell, would ya look at that, I’ve gone and lost an arm and a leg!”  The tone of sincere surprise dropped abruptly with a high pitched giggle chasing after it, his voice sounding tired but stubbornly amused with himself.  It echoed through the somewhat barren room and it took a moment for the sound to die down with the amusement still held in his voice.  “Yeah, I’m a’right.  Why?  You worried about me?”

She wanted to be irritated, she really did, but her lips quirked up at the side before she could quite stop them.  His question helped her fight it off and she crossed her arms over her chest, hip cocked to the side.  It was easier somehow, talking to him with the curtain between them like this, as though not having to look him in the face changed something in the equation, and it seemed given ease of the conversation that he might be experiencing the same effect.

Her voice was wry and slightly chiding on behalf of the other woman.  “Mercy had wanted to take a look at you.”

“She better get in line apparently.”  He sounded practically cheery if a bit exhausted and it was infectious.  The comment, though, drew a gentle huff from her as she toyed with a tone bordering on annoyed.

“Mmhm.”  She debated whether she should show her hand, that she had known he was there, that it would appear that she was keeping tabs on him, and decided it already didn’t much matter; she was already there, there was little that could hide that.  “Is there a reason you’re still here?”

There was another brief silence before his voice lilted over the words, taunting.  “Reckoned I’d get myself squeaky clean, considering.  Had sand in places you wouldn’t even _believe_.”

She didn’t have time to answer as the sound of the water abruptly stopped, opening the space up to quieter sounds.  She could hear a grunt and the sound of him moving, and the fact that she no clue what was happening on the other side of the curtain giving her a quick spike of panic.  Surely he wasn’t going to come out.

Wet fabric, metal, movement.  The sounds did little to prepare her and before she could say anything in protest he whipped back the curtain.  He was sitting on a bench, his good foot on the floor, a towel wrapped around his waist, and within a second or so he had the prosthetic arm held out to her, the wrist at a strange angle under the force of gravity.  He hadn’t looked at her, not yet, opting instead to tip his head back with a gentle _thunk_ against the wall behind him.  It highlighted the curve of his neck and made him look oddly vulnerable.

He was absolutely soaked, not having taken the time to dry himself off at all, his hair pulled back against his head in a way she hadn’t seen before.  Droplets of water occasionally shivered and joined together on his shoulders, running down his body in rivulets and pooling in the curves of his stomach.  She could count each freckle if she wanted to and realized suddenly that she was staring.  Her arms pulled tighter over her chest and she dragged her gaze to the side abruptly and with determination, lips pursing together and brow furrowed in irritation, mostly at herself.

He was looking at her from the corners of his eyes and grinning toothily but she had seen the flush on his cheeks and had a sudden vision of him on the floor beneath her, her mind helpfully switching in a version of him soaking wet, clean, instead.  It took all she had not to simply leave without a word.  She’d done it before.  But she held her ground, arms in front of herself like a barrier, breath forced into a slow and even rhythm and the same stoicism distilled in her voice, the tone coming out perhaps a bit too harsh.

“What exactly do you want?”

He shrugged, a careless thing rolled over muscled shoulders, and she glanced back to him, catching the detail of his tattoo as she did so.  It seemed as though she had never truly seen it, the first time her mind had fully processed it.  He was cleaner, possibly, or perhaps it was just the lighting but the ink stood out stark against his pale skin, the skull staring back at her before she shifted her eyes back to the prosthetic in his hand.  She focused hard only on the way it was crooked in the wrist, lifeless in a way that was indefinably disturbing. 

“A favor.”  She chanced a look at his features and found them looking earnest and the faintest bit contrite. 

“Ya mind holdin’ onto it, maybe takin’ a look if you get the chance?  Thing’s next to useless for me ‘til I can get to repairin’ it, was thinkin’ maybe you could modify one a them hard light thingies a bit so I can give it another go.”

She looked at the arm dubiously, a crease developing in her brow, and apparently hesitated too long.  It wasn’t hurt, precisely, that bled into his expression, but it was something like it, a realization that he’d asked too much perhaps.  Somehow the underlying emotion only made him grin more widely as he pulled the metal limb back towards himself, withdrawing it from her reach, his tone lifting as if suddenly remembering something.  “Shite, it’s late though ain’t it?  Ah, nevermind.  Best I tinker with it, get it back to the way it was.”

She wouldn’t have been able to explain why, but instead of taking the out he provided her she reached forward and took the prosthetic from his hand before he could take it away again, having to move in close to do so.  She withdrew with it, holding it carefully but a bit away from herself, relieved to find it also was more or less clean.  It was lighter than she remembered, not attached to his arm like on their mission in Egypt.  “I can look at it, if it’s necessary for you to be able to function correctly.”  Her voice felt strong.  Confident.

Perhaps it was the surprise, but his voice rose in another high-pitched giggle.  “Dunno about that, not sure if you noticed but I’m a bit off.  Don’t think a new arm’s gonna do the trick.”  But he smiled toothily again, head cocked lightly to the side.  A sincerity lurked underneath it, hidden between sharp teeth.   “Honestly, I’ve got a spare part I can pop in, no worries.”

“No.”  The answer came to her faster than she would have expected and her fingers held to the arm a bit more tightly as she took a step back, turning as she did so in a way that indicated there was nothing more to be said about it.  “It isn’t a problem.”

It had been what she was thinking about earlier, hadn’t it?  The exact scenario.  A chance to look at it, examine it, _improve_ it.  There was the slightest feeling that it was wrong, that it was too intimate somehow, but she pushed it away in the interest of her curiosity, already looking through the struts before recalling he was there.

He had been watching her a long moment, eyes slowly narrowing in thought before he abruptly broke into another grin, wide and beaming.  “Yeah, alright then.  Thanks.”

Her fingers curled more tightly around the metal prosthetic as she nodded and realized silently that it was likely the longest she had spoken to him about anything other than a mission since the incident, and despite her earlier irritation at having to be in his presence and the distraction of his… position… there was a strange sort of relief there.  She was about to back away carefully and leave when she realized something.

“Do you… need any help?”  She had no idea what that might entail and didn’t let herself think much of it.  Retrieving Roadhog, most likely.  Her willingness to help stabilize him as he left the workshop in no way followed through to doing so while he was fresh from the shower; her mind didn’t need that sort of provocation.  At any rate, his prosthetic leg was there with him, propped against the side of the enclosure, dry and ostensibly ready to be put back on.

He wheezed moreso than laughed, apparently attempting to contain it and failing.  “Ya gonna carry me?”  The word ‘again’ was left off, either because he didn’t have the thought or he was being merciful.  She couldn’t be sure.  His head cocked to the side as if in challenge as he peered at her with one narrowed eye before looking away and reaching out across the space for the prosthetic leg.  “Nah, I can get by without it.  Have plenty of times before.”

She nodded quietly and looked down at the metal in her hands, lost in thought for a moment.  He seemed busy, putting the prosthetic leg back on, and she thought it best to leave, so she raised her chin towards him in a faint nod he wouldn’t see.  “Goodnight, Junkrat.”

His teeth were already pressed into some kind of binding and he looked up as if he’d forgotten she was there before grinning around the material and splaying his long fingers in a wave.  It was the best she would get, she imagined.

The interaction had been far easier than she expected when she’d first paused in the corridor and she came to a stop after exiting the locker room, taking in everything that had happened and lowering her eyes to the metal limb in her hands, the faint blue of the hard light glinting under the scuffed and scraped orange paint of the metal.  She was tired and strangely satisfied with the evening, but a certain excitement came along with the odd construct she held in her hands and as she made her way back to her quarters her mind mulled over what it meant and what she could do with it and she had to reign her thoughts back in forcefully so that, by the time she was back in her room, she was able to place it carefully on the surface of her dresser.  The temptation to examine it was strong, enough so that even after she’d settled into bed with the covers drawn her eyes continued to drift to the gentle glow across the room casting shadows from behind the metal supports. 

Her eyes drifted closed finally, far later than was reasonable, and she fell into a deep, even sleep, blessedly unmarred by any dreams of the violence of Ilios or Egypt and with only the faintest memories of soot-covered hands and the smell of smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter is sort of a lot of words without a lot goin' on but also like, setting things up? Anyway I hope this one is still easy to follow and you enjoy it :P
> 
> also yeah there are some similarities to varg's shower scene... I wanted a shower scene and I was like... how do I do this so I hope it was sufficiently different. this is why I can't read varg's fic anymore until I'm done :o
> 
> Feedback is always welcome of course, I had a lot goin on in real life while this one was being written so hrrggh please be kind


	12. Chapter 12

Jamison was having trouble shaking the Egypt mission.  Immediately after they’d gotten back to base and disembarked he made a point of leaving the hangar as quickly as possible and slinking off to somewhere empty.

His mind kept coming around to it, had been since it happened, and not the near-death bit, he’d had those before and this wasn’t one of the worse ones.  Nah.  It was the whole bit with Satya.  How close she’d been, the force of her body on top of him, everything.  And yeah alright, he hadn’t had much time to process it but it was there the whole ride back to the base.  Satya sitting feet away didn’t help.  He couldn’t look at her, at least not without drawing her attention, but also couldn’t decide if seeing her was worse or better than the alternative.

It’d been hell trying not to do anything.  Worst was his brain kept trying to offer specifics of all the things he hadn’t done.  Hadn’t moved the flat of his palm along the exposed skin of her legs.  Hadn’t curled his fingers into the fabric of her uniform.  Hadn’t felt it wrinkle underneath his touch as he pulled her closer.  He shook his head violently to try to clear that particular thought.  Best not to think about it.

He reckoned he was lucky she’d taken an interest in the mechanics of his arm or else he might’ve done something he’d regret.  Well, not that he’d regret exactly, but things he doubted she’d appreciate.  Given she didn’t even seem particularly interested in a repeat of King’s Row.

Anyway it was all trouble, and a helluva lot of it.  Even the way she’d grabbed the prosthetic arm and looked at it.  He could swear he’d never seen her with an expression like that, never seen her smile like it or her eyes light up, and considering some of the things she’d said about his handiwork in general it was more than a surprise how pleased she seemed to be with him integrating her design into the mechanics.  He had… lower expectations.  Actually sort of expected her to be displeased.  Maybe even disgusted.  That’s why the hard light was supposed to stay hidden beneath the metal struts, at least until he got everything figured out and cleaned up.  He was damn well glad it hadn’t stayed hidden, now.

He spent about an hour in the workshop trying to distract himself, toying with the rip-tire halfheartedly and working on the prosthetic hand just enough to release the jam that had locked up the fingers, strangely disinterested in working on a longer-term fix or in tinkering with any of the other projects he’d started.  He couldn’t take being alone with his own thoughts, couldn’t even keep his mind on the work, and after a while he went out in search of Roadhog.

He found Roadhog in the rec room.  Everything about the base still seemed a little fuzzy, probably not helped by the fact that it was late, and he felt like he was in a bit of a daze as he wandered into the space aimlessly.  Roadhog had looked up at him from the magazine he was reading and immediately snorted, loudly, and in a way that nearly made Jamison wince.  He’d noticed something, Jamison wasn’t sure exactly _what_ he’d noticed, but he definitely had.  He had a tendency of doing that, and a tendency of not sharing what he knew.

“Good mission?”  Roadhog sat there like a mountain.  His tone was hard to read but Jamison squinted at him, getting as much as he could from the blank face of the mask.  He figured there was something taunting in there and it made him purse his lips together, untrustingly.  The words were guarded and suspicious, but he couldn’t help himself from rattling them off in a rapid, energetic cadence anyway. 

“Yeah.  Y’know.  Lots of things goin’ all explodey.  Can’t complain.  Lots of rockets too, though.  Not a fan of those, not when they’re pointed at me at least.”

He attempted being casual by leaning against the rec room’s pool table and meant to cross his arms over his chest but couldn’t keep himself from fidgeting, his hand swiping the little cube of chalk and running it with nervous energy between his fingers, leaving behind little traces of blue color on his skin.  Roadhog was still sitting there, staring at him, absolutely silent.  It made him uneasy and it was all he could do to stifle the high-pitched, nervous laugh welling up in his throat as he tried to keep it all in.  It didn’t work for long.  It burst out of him and he gripped the cube of chalk hard as if it would help somehow, crumbling it at the edges.

“ _Christ_ , Roadie, you wouldn’t believe… I’ve had a day mate, a real hell of a day.  Not the mission—” He interjected the thought as though Roadhog had shown concern.  He hadn’t.  “—couldn’t give a rat’s arse about that… nearly carked it I guess now that I think about it.”  He paused suddenly with the thought, staring blankly into space for a moment before continuing like he’d never stopped.  “—but there was uh…”

He found he couldn’t find a way to explain it and glanced around the room as if to make sure it was indeed empty, craning his neck to look through the open door to make sure the hallway was empty as well.  He turned back to Roadhog and took a deep breath, shaking himself off before he flipped the chalk to his metal hand and dragged his unoccupied fingers roughly through his hair, leaving faint streaks of blue behind as they went and scattering sand and dust onto his shoulders, the words almost tripping over themselves in his agitation.

“Short version?  _Lots_ of rockets, bastards had some kind of fancy suits flyin’ up in the sky.  Soldiers swarmin’ in, bullets all over the place and we’re surrounded, yeah?  Me and Satya, anyway.”  He huffed a quick, energetic sigh as if catching his breath before going on.  “We had a portal up.  Wasn’t much option, so I pull her through, right?  I’m on the floor and next thing I know she’s…”  He trailed off abruptly and laughed again through gritted teeth, high-pitched and manic, moreso than typical, rubbing at the back of his neck.  “It was a compromisin’ position, let’s just say.”

Roadhog, for his part, listened in silence.  The grand reveal pulled a seemingly unimpressed grunt from him and he shifted his weight, tipping his head to the side doubtfully.  “So she fell on you.”

He’d made it sound like it wasn’t noteworthy and Jamison immediately narrowed his eyes at him with offense.

“Well… yeah, mate.  Right on top of me.”

Roadhog shrugged slowly, his voice rumbling over the word.  “A’right.”

Jamison slumped back against the pool table with his lips pursed together, eyes narrowed, tossing the chalk over his shoulder where it clattered onto the floor as his voice dropped to something closer to a mumble.  “Look mate, you didn’t see it a’right?  There’s somethin’ there.”  He tugged gently at the metal fingers of his prosthetic, eyeing the faint blue glow within it thoughtfully.  “It’s trouble is all…”

Roadhog had effectively taken the wind out of him, which might have been for the best.  If nothing else it had calmed Jamison down, and his voice didn’t make it sound like he might explode anymore.  “She noticed the modifications.”

That got Roadhog’s attention.  He tilted his head to the side and spoke with what seemed like genuine interest.  “What’d she say?”

“Well that’s the thing, isn’t it?  Seemed really pleased, dunno why.  Smiled the biggest I’ve ever seen.”  Jamison tipped his head to the side as he added onto it as if it were an afterthought, clearing his throat a bit awkwardly as his voice dropped to an uncertain mumble.  “Sorta settled right down on me.  Seemed all excited.”

A long, low rumble came from Roadhog, as if he were working something over thoughtfully.  “If she’s interested maybe you should show her how it works.”

Jamison snorted.  “Ya think so?”  He wrinkled his nose with the sarcasm but the uncertainty lingered in his voice.  If Roadhog thought it was worth considering it seemed like a good enough idea.  “Yeah alright.  Maybe I’ll bring that up.  Ask her to help me out with it.  Bloody thing jammed up on me, after all.”

Roadhog got to his feet with a heavy breath that seemed satisfied, somehow.  He took a couple of lumbering steps towards Jamison, as if headed for the door.  “You should shower.”

Jamison’s voice raised in a loud whine.  “What?  Come on mate, it’s late, it’s been a day.  I’m knackered.”

“You’re leaving a trail.”

Jamison glanced down at himself and caught a glimpse of sand falling from his hair as he lowered his head, gnawing at the inside of his cheek thoughtfully.  He looked up to Roadhog with a crooked smile, chin tipped to the side.  “Don’t think that’s anything new, is it?”  His lips curled wider in a grin, amused with himself and clearly content to stay filthy.

Roadhog was absolutely silent, staring at him.  It made Jamison nervous and he backed down, raising his hands in apparent concession.  “Alright.  Sure, I’ll go.  On my way right now actually, deffo.  See you later, right?”

Sometimes he wondered why he’d ever hired Roadhog in the first place… the large junker trudged towards him, Jamison still holding his hands out in front of himself with a nervous laugh, eyes darting to the sides as if looking for an escape route and finding nothing.  One of Roadhog’s large hands dwarfed his shoulder as it curled around it and he tugged the lanky junker closer before turning him around and pushing him towards the door, his breath echoing behind his mask. 

“I’ll walk you there.”

The trip to the locker room was brief but vaguely humiliating and it turned Jamison a little sullen as he tried to shrug Roadhog’s hand off of his shoulder.

“Alright, alright, I said I was goin’ didn’t I?  Might have a bung leg but I can walk myself.  Day like I had, seems kinda cruel to bail me up and ship me off unwillingly, don’t it?”

Roadhog took in a breath and responded in a remarkably patient tone.  “People like it more when you’re clean.”

Finally succeeding in dislodging Roadhog’s hand, Jamison brushed his shoulder off, incidentally removing some sand as he did so with an indignant huff.  “Yeah, I know, mate.  Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

 

* * *

 

He hated water.  Absolutely hated it. 

Jamison sat on a stool under the stream of warm water, left leg splayed out in front of him and his left arm dangling lifelessly at his side out of spite.  Both prosthetics were outside the shower in the personal space cordoned off by a second curtain, the limbs within easy reach of the bench outside.  The transition from the shower to the bench was relatively easy, something he was used to despite his infrequent use of the facilities.  He was busy staring straight ahead, sulking as the water pattered down on his hair, washing away debris and soot and chalk, the discolored liquid trailing in rivulets down his back.  Roadhog had given him a bar of soap.  He hadn’t used it yet.

If being in the workshop had been unfulfilling the shower was worse, and if trying to fix the rip-tire couldn’t get him away from his thoughts, well.  Sitting in the shower was worse.  His teeth bit down on his tongue as he thought, the sharper bits stinging a little, as if he needed to have something to chew on to dispel some restless energy.

Roadhog’s reaction had been disappointing.  Dismissive-like, in a way that both irritated and worried him.  The large junker didn’t seem to think any of it meant much but he wasn’t _there_.  Hadn’t seen the way she looked at him, like it mattered, not to mention her surprising reaction to the modifications to his arm.  That was definitely something, and at least on that he and Roadhog could agree.  His sharp teeth abandoned his tongue and found his lower lip instead as he tried to hold back a slight smile and failed.  It was nice, seeing her like that.  Even if he’d been more than a little distracted.  And he probably wasn’t imagining things.

He huffed in irritation, letting his eyes close for a moment.  It was a bad idea.  It brought everything back, the dim lighting, the light glow of her visor and earrings, the usual pristine white of her uniform marred by scattered sand and debris and marks of soot on her shoulders where he’d wrapped around her. 

He shivered and opened his eyes in search of a diversion.  The soap entered the equation suddenly as a good, if brief, distraction from his thoughts.  Roadhog had been right; he was absolutely filthy, moreso than usual.  He blamed the sand.  And the rocket fire.  And alright, himself generally as well.  The soap did the trick pretty quickly though, and despite being clean enough to pass Roadhog’s potential inspection he found himself surprisingly not wanting to leave the warmth and the noise of the falling water that served as a background for his thoughts.  Just enough to keep just enough of his brain occupied to let him think.

He stared blankly ahead of himself with a gentle furrow slowly developing on his brow as his attention wandered to the modifications to his arm.

He wasn’t sure if it could work.  The hard light construct was so smooth, no friction, and he wasn’t sure if it could be made any other way.  As nice as the hard light was and as much as it cut down on potential damage and wear he needed the roughness of something like metal to control the grip and to warn him when he pulled too fast, clenched his fist too hard, extended the fingers too far.  There had to be a feedback between it and the muscles of his arm.  The connection was imperfect maybe, but it _worked_.  Always had, or good enough at least.  A part of him, the same part from before that got upset when she questioned it, insisted stubbornly that his design was the best it could be, but the part of him that had picked the hard light mechanism up from the work bench suggested that maybe it could actually be something better.

He lifted his left hand thoughtfully, his lips turning downwards at one corner, pressed tightly together as he wrapped his fingers around his right arm just above the elbow, just above where it abruptly ended.  He could still feel it sometimes, like it was always there.  Like it had never left.  The same with his leg but not as much as the arm.  Always seemed strange.  The phantom feeling of his right hand curling into a fist caused him to narrow his eyes gently, drifting back into thought puzzling over the possible design changes to the prosthetic, and he got lost in it for a good while, considering mental schematics as his teeth dug gently into his tongue.

He had finally shaken his thoughts away to something acceptable, but even over the rushing sound of the water he could hear the subtle sound of steps, and they definitely weren’t Roadhog’s.  His features pinched together as he tilted his head, trying to hear better but failing, one eye narrowed and the opposite eyebrow raised as he did his best to try to determine who it was.  He couldn’t have possibly guessed.  He was about to say something when he heard her voice cutting through the patter of water still hitting the top of his head.

“… Junkrat?”  Her voice was muffled from the echo of the water in the otherwise empty room and his lips spread in a slow, lazy grin as he mimicked the tone, his teeth nipping his tongue afterwards to keep himself from giggling.

“… Symmetra?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one, sorry! The next section was starting to go long so I figured I'd break them up, and this way we have one chapter that's all Junkrat POV. I hope it's not too confusing where this fits in the timeline, I tried to make it pretty clear, please let me know if it's not!


	13. Chapter 13

Satya had woken up early despite how late she had gone to bed.  Her dreams had become increasingly distracted as the time wore on and she eventually pulled herself slowly to a sit with a long, quiet sigh.  She was still exhausted but there was little point in attempting to sleep, so she got to her feet and began shuffling through her typical morning routine.  As she brushed her hair she stood in front of the dresser where the prosthetic arm sat, looking somehow empty and alien without Jamison at the other end of it.  Her mind was already rushing with premature ideas but she forced her thoughts to calm as she finished getting ready for the day.

It was only after she was dressed that she took the metal limb from the top of the dresser and sat down at the edge of the bed, cradling it carefully in her hands as if it were some fragile thing despite the obvious truth of the opposite.  The arm felt so much heavier than when it had been attached to him.  Her hands ran along the curves of the metal, mapping the exterior before she looked at it more closely.

He had loosened the casing of the lower part at some point by flipping open the connectors, the part where it attached to his arm.  She couldn’t be sure when, and that seemed as though it might indicate that he had intended to give the prosthetic to her, that it was more planned than she had thought.  Regardless, it took very little effort aside from some very careful maneuvering to keep the metal from chipping her nails to pull the casing of the lower section away and expose the inner workings. 

The hard-light construct made up the core, thin metal cables that he had provided threaded through it to the mechanism controlling the fingers and the gentle blue of the frayed ends of incomplete, smooth hard-light wires simply pushed to the side to accommodate a working version.  The cables came in sets, each long tendon divided into three separate cables linked together, she supposed for easier replacement should one break.  The tendons disappeared upward along the still-sealed section of the forearm and into the makeshift wrist.  The hard-light switch designed to change the cabling tracks to control the thumb had been altered, a piece of metal jammed into it for purposes she didn’t yet understand.   She could see where the somewhat stretchy material—rubber, most likely—would be fitted to his upper arm and the way it followed along the elbow, nestled in a circular, domed plate that she had assumed was only for armor purposes and disappeared into the forearm only to show up again inside the casing, attached to the cables via a chaotic nest of wiring likely meant, she suddenly realized, to amplify the subtle movement of his muscles to prompt the correct movements.

The concept she had gathered of it after her brief observation of it in the workshop and in Egypt was far less complete than she had thought, and an examination of his somewhat crude modification to the switch didn’t provide any answers.  Experimentally, she tugged on a cable below the hard-light construct and watched as a finger responded, bending in turn.  It was absolutely fascinating, but also worrisome in its construction.  How long had it taken him to make, and to calibrate to its current functionality?  She doubted he had any real training, at least in something like this.  It was something even she would have difficulty with at the start.

As she looked at it she considered a very simple alternative: she could just create a new arm, in full, without concern for all of the metal, with its own cabling, arranged in such a way as to make sense.  If dismantled she could examine each component and simply craft it in hard-light to be reconstructed later in the whole product, probably anyway, and her fingers curled at the thought, eyes flitting from the arm to the space between them as they began to weave a prototype shape—one of the cover plates—into existence, almost automatically.

That wasn’t the plan, though.  Even if she was doing it as a favor to him she supposed she ought to include him in the activity, and regardless it was difficult to fully focus in her quarters.  It wasn’t an optimal space for working, and while there her mind tended to wander to other things.  She picked the arm up, gently flipping the casing closed.  She supposed she had to leave her quarters and face him at some point.  No time like the present. 

* * *

 

She had assumed he would already be there and was not surprised.  When she entered the workshop with the prosthetic arm in hand she saw both Jamison and Roadhog, Jamison leaning back against his worktable with a lazy grin and Roadhog across the room with an expression unreadable under the mask, but his shoulders were raised slightly it seemed with some form of tension.  As the door hissed open she heard the low timbre of Roadhog’s voice as it rumbled from him in something near a growl.

“Do that _one more time_ …”

She wasn’t certain what she walked into and a glance between the two of them gave her no answers, and whatever tension might be there it seemed as though Jamison was either unaware of it or simply didn’t care enough to acknowledge it.  He looked up from where he was leaning against the worktable almost immediately, as though he’d been waiting, his eyes wide and a clear, enthusiastic smile on his features.  She noted that he already had a faint dark mark smudged under his left cheekbone, additional fingerprints around the curve of his jaw, as if he’d had a soot-covered hand wrapped around his chin at some point.  She couldn’t even fathom how he lived his life like this.

Upon further inspection Roadhog had been busy working with some metal across the room, doing she had no idea what.  She had the brief suspicion that perhaps he was there more to supervise than anything else, given how things had gone the last time she’d been in the workshop.  The thought seemed as though it was backed up by the fact that when Jamison bounded to his feet he cast a glance to the masked junker in the back of the room before making his way over to her.  He seemed like he was standing up straighter than usual, and his gold tooth glinted even as the grin turned briefly awkward, an effect quickly shaken off.  

“G’day.”  There was a subtle edge to the word and his tone was maybe a little nervous despite the smile.

“Good morning.”  Somehow her mind had wandered away from the reason she was there as she looked at him, cocking her hip to the side as she considered him, recalling with sudden clarity the last time she had seen him.  In the shower.  The thought was unwelcome and as she didn’t immediately offer any commentary on the prosthetic she could see his expression strain with uncertainty as he looked down to it again, back up to her, like some strange form of visual pacing.  Her eyes lingered at his right arm where it ended abruptly just below the elbow, wondering idly if being without his prosthetic made him uneasy and made him feel imbalanced, just as being without her gauntlet made her.  The silence was going on a little too long and he broke it abruptly.

“Did ya get a chance to—”

Her mind came back to the present and she cut him off, mostly on accident but politely enough, she thought.  “I did, but did not have the opportunity to craft alternatives.  But I do intend to do that now.”  She gathered herself, using the words as a source of strength, and smiled gently with it as a sign of good will even as she slipped by him and moved back towards her own workspace.  He followed happily enough, without a word, as she slipped the arm onto the table and gently unclipped the cover to expose the inner workings again.

As she settled in from the corner of her eye she could see his hand trailing the edge of the workbench as he sidled into the space beside her, the apprehensive energy practically palpable.  It was troublesome, and though her hands had already curled in front of herself she paused, palms one over the other and fingertips trailing lightly across her own wrists.

“This does sometimes require a great deal of concentration.”

Her voice suggested a request that he failed to pick up on and she glanced towards him as he looked between her face and her hands with anticipation.  She searched him from the corners of her eyes before pulling her hands away from one-another a short distance and looked at him directly, clarifying.

“You’re being distracting.”

“Right!  Sorry.”  Not to be dissuaded, his grin flagged wider again and he backed off a pace or two, straightening up with a crisp nod.  “I’ll stay out of your way, then.  Oi Roadie, ya wanna go get some grub?”

The large man didn’t answer but immediately got to his feet, looking to her as he lumbered toward the workshop door with Jamison in tow, Roadhog nodding and Jamison waving enthusiastically as they left the workshop, the door hissing gently closed behind them.

It was good to be alone somewhere where she felt her mind could focus, and with the rest of the workshop quiet she lowered her hands thoughtfully, considering the prosthetic for a moment before making up her mind.  She gently removed the hard-light structure, unclipping the cables to do so, examining the piece of metal he had added to the switch to correct it.  Something in her design hadn’t been calibrated quite correctly to properly change the cable’s track, she realized, which shouldn’t be a surprise; she’d made it off of sight alone, not by a full understanding of the part’s function or by fitting it with the rest of the pieces.  The strip of metal had been a quick fix and little else.  Once she understood the modification it was simple enough to replicate the structure inside, fixing imperfections with a twist of her thumb.  She cycled through different versions one by one considering both function and appearance, streamlining many of the designs as if shaving off the rough edges of the original before letting each of them blink out of existence, satisfied that she had an understanding of how the part needed to work. 

The base part she’d crafted was really little more than a guide through which the wires or cables could be properly directed, although the switch was absolutely essential.  Though she’d added some cabling and supports as well to catch the cables’ movements before he’d taken the part from her, they had been moved off to the side, incomplete and unused.  Now with all of it in front of her she could deconstruct it fully, at least as much as was allowed without dismantling it. 

The more she worked the more she saw imperfections that could be smoothed over and redundancies that could be fixed, ways to make it more efficient, and the thought occurred to her once more and with more strength that really it might be easier to simply make him a new arm, from scratch.  Her own design, from hard-light.  It could easily supersede the need to fix his own.  Experimentally, she wove together a new design with a few artful flicks of her wrists and twists of her fingers and brought it into being with a slow and focused breath, a much more extensive piece: the housing for the cables, the switch mechanism, and five thin, blue, smooth cables, all glowing in a gentle blue haze of light, not yet made solid.

Jamison and Roadhog returned far too soon, Jamison bouncing on his feet as the door slid open.  She glanced back at the two of them.  Jamison was drinking intermittently from the canteen typically strapped to his side and she wrinkled her nose, wondering if it was a habit he had to be drinking so early, but his grin widened and seemed to ease out as he saw her and he meandered over with his uneven gait, crossing the threshold into her corner of the workshop as Roadhog resumed his seat across the room.  She still held the new part between her fingers, light pinched into a complex shape as he sidled up behind her, his left hand pressing to the table at her side as he leaned into her field of view, staring at the construct between her hands.  He was chewing on something, a toothpick she realized, and he was standing a little closer than she would have expected, but she supposed he’d have to be fairly close to look at what she was making so intently.

Her eyes flitted towards him, catching his own for a moment before he looked back to the real-life schematic between her fingers and he leaned in closer to examine it, the rest of him doing so as well.  His hair shifted into a dismayingly attractive state of disarray as he tipped his head and he was close enough that she could have sworn she felt the heat coming off of him.  He smelled mild and clean, pleasant even, and she found herself taking in careful, metered breaths.

“Oooh.  Shiny.”  The word was chased with a quiet giggle before he could focus again.  “Is that what you’re thinkin’?  As a replacement for the part you already made?”

“Mmhm.”

From the corner of her eyes she saw his teeth catch his lower lip, a strange expression making a home on his features as he chewed determinedly on the toothpick, brow lightly furrowed.  “Bit more extensive, isn’t it?”  He said it as if the words were forced out of him, as if he truly hadn’t wanted to say it.  It read as trepidation, for some reason.

She nodded matter-of-factly and allowed her voice to loft over the words with a cool sort of confidence, comfortable in her element.  “Yes.  I believe that by expanding the hard light components we may remove many potential problems related to malfunction, and you may have less need for frequent repair.  Actually,” she turned her gaze to her hands again and focused, the part she already crafted shimmering into solidity, and she lowered it gently to the workbench before raising her hands again and twisting her fingers, a shape between them growing as she wove it together with delicate movements, a faint smile taking hold of her lips as the form of an arm and hand took shape, the skeleton mechanics disappearing under the gentle blue of protective plates.

“I’ve begun to think that perhaps it would be best if we simply replaced it with hard-light structure entirely for improved form and function.”

He pressed his fingers against the table and gently backed away a step or two, a faint crease having developed on his forehead, his eyebrows knitted together in something that looked like a very familiar kind of concern.  Her gaze followed him, focused as she tried to determine what expression was on his face, though she couldn’t quite pin it down.  He was trying very hard not to appear… _something_.  He laughed once, briefly, more of a harsh breath of air, and brought his hand to the nape of his neck, rubbing it gently, hesitantly, and with no small amount of apprehension.  “… right.” 

Some subtle change in his expression had removed whatever made something a smile and left him instead with what seemed like a wince.  The complicated architecture she held between her hands abruptly disappeared in her confusion and he glanced towards her now-empty hands, teeth gritting tighter over the expression until he managed to turn it back into a grin through sheer force of will. 

He'd expected her to say it, she realized, had perhaps even been dreading it, and she looked at him more closely, recalling their last conversation about the issue and what felt like its disastrous end.

He procrastinated so much with the words that she nearly said something, his hand returning to the back of his neck almost sheepishly and his voice a practiced attempt at appeasement.  “Thing is… a couple of problems with that, I think.”

Her arms drifted back to her sides as she watched him and her features developed a neutral expression and she suddenly realized that the emotion she was pushing away was irritation.  She had considered the issues.  There was no foreseeable problem with constructing it entirely out of hard-light.  And despite that, she didn’t _want_ to be annoyed with him.

He must have read it in her face as he looked at her and laughed an airy thing, glancing from her eyes to the solid part she had made on the workshop table and then back to her again with a fleeting, apologetic smile before taking her new hard-light construct from the table and abruptly fitting it into the arm as he mumbled.  “I’ll just… hang on a tick.”

He unclipped the cabling with expertise and settled the new hard-light component in before clipping and tightening everything back in its place.  The light blue of the hard-light stood out stark against the rest of the metal, the smooth hard-light cabling in particular standing out, integrated in with the rest of her design.  He didn’t bother to close up the casing, only bothered to hook up the essentials, just the cables in their tracks, before pulling the thing onto his arm quickly but with some difficulty—the tightness the rubber required seemed to make it a bit of an effort.  Soon it was attached though and he curled his fingers one by one experimentally.  Fully functionally, she noted to herself with a sense of pride as he began striding away towards his own workbench, speaking as he went.

“For one, not sayin’ it ain’t durable but it don’t think it’s as good at takin’ a direct hit as the metal is, not sustained anyway.  But the bigger problem—” he turned to her as he went, still moving backwards toward his own station.  “—is the friction.  I mean… the friction isn’t a problem.  By which I mean it’s a problem.”  He paused, lifted his hands, shook his head in frustration with himself, and tried again, more slowly.  “What I mean is… that hard-light stuff is less friction, yeah?  Which is good.  Less wear and tear on the cabling.  But if it’s _all_ hard-light there ain’t as _much_ friction, which means I got no feedback between the arm and the hand, right?  No way to tell what I’m doin’.”  He bent his arm at the elbow, the wrist curling, the fingers pulling together as well, looking at it a little hopelessly, the frustration bleeding in as he felt he wasn’t explaining it well enough but he soldiered on anyway.

“Already got a bit of a hair trigger, not sure if it’s a good idea to exacerbate it.  Here, lemme show you.”

He picked up the grenade launcher sitting propped up against the edge of his workbench and with an expertise clearly born of practice flipped the magazine open, snagged some grenades from the workbench surface, and popped them in, flipping the case shut.  She had a horrible feeling building in the pit of her stomach and had already put some space between them with a workshop chair and opened her mouth to protest when he swept the weapon up in his prosthetic arm and pointing it off to the opposite wall with a wide, carefree grin, seeming happier even just having the weapon in his hand. 

“Y’see, the prob—“  Before he could even make it through the word she heard the trigger click and the immediate, familiar _ka-thunk_ of a grenade being loaded into the barrel and launched toward the opposite wall.  She froze as it hit and bounced, the alarm tick of its timer ringing in her ears as it grew in volume.  Roadhog lifted his head a short distance away and she thought she could see something dangerous appear in the curve of his shoulders as his broad hands pressed against the workbench in front of him, standing slowly, the chain he’d been working on rattling to the floor.

“No worries!  Loaded it full of dummies—”

The grenade exploded with a loud bang, spraying both Jamison and Roadhog with relatively harmless debris as Jamison hopped a step or two back.  He caught the disparaging look she gave him and grinned, lopsided and nervous, but his voice bubbled out in a high-pitched laugh all the same.

“Well.  ‘Dummies’ being a relative term, I guess.”

Roadhog was standing and irritated, head lowered and a low breath verging on a growl filtering through the mask.  The large junker pulled himself to his full height and though he hadn’t moved beyond where he’d been sittings he looked as though he was ready to strangle the life out of him.  Jamison noticed and cringed back against himself, carefully placing the launcher on the workbench, calling out in a nervous, high pitched voice. “Sorry, Hog!”

Roadhog grunted, disgruntled, and sat down heavily, picking his chain back up with one quick, pointed movement.  The set of his shoulders as he went back to his work suggested irritation that had best not be poked at again.

Jamison looked away from him carefully and as his gaze returned to her she could see the strange set to his jaw and the curve of his lips that almost made him look as though he were asking for approval. 

“Anyway… with the cabling being hard-light it’s too hard to tell what I’m doin’.  Holdin’ stuff too tight, moving too fast.  I was hopin’ maybe we could just… keep the hard-light as a guide for now, somethin’ for the cabling to go through.  Cut down on the wear, keep some of the friction, yeah?”

She looked at him.  At some point she had crossed her arms over her chest, likely just after she thought they might all get hit with grenade debris, and she must have looked more disapproving than she intended because he hesitated and dropped his voice to a mutter in what seemed something like a last-ditch effort.  “Alright… and truth is, I’m kind of partial to it.  The design.  The way it is.”

She was impressed with it all.  But grudgingly so, and feeling far too stubborn to properly show it.  She’d missed the more delicate parts of the design, it seemed, and subtleties within it that she didn’t know existed, or perhaps simply assumed did not.  He had considered all of it more than she expected, and while it seemed there were benefits to him using the hard-light technology she found herself wondering if it was really worth all of the trouble.

“You’ve thought a lot about this.” 

He laughed again with a bit more nerve behind it and gestured with the prosthetic hand.  “Well I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t tested the old one out.  Used your cables at first, had a hard time controlling it.  Nearly took off Roadie’s arm.”

Roadhog lifted his head long enough to grunt loudly and utter a single word. 

“Nope.”

Jamison turned to the large junker and gave him a wilting look, shoulders slumping in a disheartened way even while his jaw worked against itself in irritation.  But he turned back to her and bolstered himself up again, taking in a deep breath and holding it for a second to power his grin.  “At any rate it’s still great stuff.  Pretty durable too, considering.”  He paused at a thought and cleared his throat before carefully adding on in a lowered tone, “… I may have hit the original with a hammer.”  He immediately grinned wider, a hopeless expression, and raised his hands in appeasement.  “Held up really well though!  _Great_ stuff.  Might’ve contributed to the malfunction on the mission though.”

She absolutely had to slow things down.  For some reason everything felt as though it was coming in too fast and she lowered her head, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger with a slow breath that almost immediately escaped as a faint laugh, an incredulous sounding thing that was amused all the same.  She shook her head against her fingers, eyes still closed, and her eyebrows raised in high, helpless arcs as she looked back to him with a gentle shake of her head and a light tone in her voice. 

“Why wouldn’t you just keep your own design?  This seems like a large effort for very little potential gain.”

He paused.  He’d been looking at her a little bit strangely and she could see the muscles of his jaw moving as he worked his teeth against one another in a way that seemed deeply thoughtful.  His tone had evened out, less manic again and somewhat subdued in a way that made him sound more sincere than the words seemed to warrant.  “Gotta think about the long term.  Better for performance, probably better for things that might otherwise gum it up, like sand.  Planning ahead, right?”

It was a reasonable enough answer, she supposed, but it didn’t seem quite like the real one.  She watched him thoughtfully with her arms folded back across her chest, glancing from the prosthetic back to his features which were painted with a strange mix of things that she couldn’t fully identify.  There was an earnestness there but also that same trepidation.

She had waited too long to respond again, too distracted by his expression, and before she knew it he was moving back over to his workbench, chewing a little too energetically at the toothpick still in his mouth which at that point could not possibly be in one piece.  His voice tripped over the words carefully as if they were landmines… although it seemed like he was giving them greater care than he did with most of his explosives.  “Anyway, it’s not a problem to just… put the old metal parts back in.  They work pretty good as it is.  Haven’t given me too much trouble before.”  His voice lilted upwards with dogged enthusiasm as a quiet, wheezing laugh escaped him and he leaned back against the work table to hold the prosthetic arm up and start tugging out the hard-light component, getting ready to unclip the hard-light cabling from the rest of it.  It tripped her thoughts and brought her back to reality, and before she knew it she was moving towards him with a degree of urgency that surprised even herself.

Her left hand came down to rest abruptly on his own, her white gauntlet stark against his skin as she carefully nudged his fingers out of the way.  She unclipped the hard-light cables with delicate movements and removed the construct fully from the prosthetic arm and the fingers went abruptly limp as she set the part on the workbench at his side, leaning across his body to do so.  Her mind had entered a focused state; the world around her disappeared as she lifted her hands and took a slow breath, curling her fingers toward one-another and then pulling them out with a twist, bringing to life a mechanism much like the original one she had made—the simpler version, the track for the metal cabling to go through, the switch to change control from the fingers to the thumb.  The design he had suggested.

It took very little effort at that point to bring it into reality, and as the shape solidified she plucked it from the air, curled her fingers around it carefully, and pressed it forward towards him, finally looking up from her crafting.  He was staring at her in absolute silence and the look in his eyes, while not as wild and enthusiastic as he had been before, was deeper somehow.  She pressed the new part into his left hand and when he didn’t respond she gingerly curled his fingers around it before withdrawing and taking a slow, satisfied breath.

“This will be a prototype.”

He closed his eyes, squinted for a second, and shook his head as a look of confusion came over him, as though he’d just woken up.  “I… what?”

A lazy smile tugged at the corners of her lips and she nodded towards the hard-light component grasped in his hand.  “It hasn’t been field-tested, correct?  Not this upgraded version?”

He blinked heavily once again and looked down at the part, the faint blue between his curled fingers, and chewed idly once or twice on the toothpick.  “… no.”

“Then we will see how it works in the field and make any necessary modifications, correct?”

He looked back up to her and his head tipped to the side as a one corner of his lips curled upwards slowly, his brow furrowed and eyes narrowed in puzzled amusement.  It was strange to see the expression on him; it was a middle ground between his manic excitement and the occasional disheartened looks, and it smoothed her own smile out into something even and steady.  His voice found the words slowly and his tongue ran along the roof of his mouth, toothpick dangling between his teeth for a moment before he spoke.

“Yeah.  Alright.”

It took a moment.  She was closer than she’d realized from having pressed the hard-light mechanism into his hands and she only realized it as a cough echoed through the completely silent space.  Roadhog was still there.  She took a sweeping step backwards and blinked, gaze briefly turned down to her shoes as she recalibrated and pushed the previous moment away with a slow breath.  There was absolutely no reason for her cheeks to feel warm but they did all the same and her jaw set in irritation against it as she folded her hands together in front of herself, lifting her gaze with a strong huff of air that helped clear her mind.

Jamison, for his part, had already started putting the new part in, a cluster of metal cables held between his teeth, having replaced the toothpick at some point, somehow smiling happily around all the metal in his mouth.  He’d started trying to talk, the words muffled and somewhat difficult to follow, made more difficult by the occasional clatter of metal as he made adjustments to the prosthetic arm, apparently not worried about whether or not she could actually understand a word he was saying.

“I owe you a helluva favor.  Anything you want, you just say the word.  Well, almost anything anyway.  Most things.”

She closed her eyes and drew back another step with her lips curled into another, grudging smile, giving her head a small shake as she straightened and looked up again, glancing about the room.  Roadhog had returned to whatever he was ostensibly working on and with Jamison’s attention back on the arm she took a breath and considered her options, shifting her weight gingerly.  She was just working on finding the words to excuse herself when she heard the workshop door slide open and lifted her head, looking towards the sound.  Lena was there, bouncing on her toes and darting a step or two into the room, her hands on the door as she leaned forwards to call out at them as if they were a much more substantial distance away.

“Winston’s called a meeting!  We’ve got a new mission, apparently.  Briefing in the conference room in ten minutes and then leave tomorrow morning!”  She nodded between the three of them before standing up straight with a matter-of-fact, energetic breath and her typical beaming smile.  “Seeya there, loves!”

She was out of the room before any of them had so much as a chance to breathe and Satya looked towards Jamison just in time to catch the glance between him and Roadhog.  Jamison grinned wide and excitedly around the metal still between his teeth as he stood, spitting extra cabling out onto the workshop table and floor as he finished clipping the final cable into place, the fingers of the prosthetic arm immediately flexing and stretching as they tested their new machinery and a high-pitched giggle welled up from his throat.

“Well.  Looks like it’s time for that field test!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope the stuff with the prosthetic stuff isn't COMPLETELY UNFOLLOWABLE because I drew diagrams and shit and trust me man did I ever have a hard time trying to find ways to explain it. that said I also hope the entire chapter isn't like HEY LOOK AT THIS ARM HUH????
> 
> sorry if it's off, if you have advice it's welcome!
> 
> that said this was still really fun to write.


	14. Chapter 14

The briefing had been… brief.  Winston had given them very little except for where they were going, what they would need, and the absolute basics.  It was a retrieval, essentially, get in stealthily, get out stealthily, and with any luck don’t come across any problems.  There hadn’t even been an explanation of what they were going in to retrieve.  Satya had spent the rest of the day after their briefing chatting with nearly every teammate attempting to extract more information about what exactly they were going to be doing, but she hadn’t had much luck.  The only one aside from Winston who seemed to have any clue what exactly they were going into was Lena, and she had deftly avoided being cornered into an explanation, somehow masterfully steering the conversation towards other things.

It had seemed like an odd mission from the start, but it was the type she preferred; Overwatch always tried to avoid violence unless it was necessary—it was one of the things she truly appreciated about the organization—but most of their mission briefs included a warning as to the fact that a fight was to be expected.  Violence tended to be the rule rather than the exception, however disappointing it might be to admit, but if it was for the goal of making the world a better place there wasn’t necessarily anything to be done about it.  This mission, though, was supposed to be quiet.  Peaceful.  She liked the idea.

Even so it had made Satya feel a little bit uneasy, not knowing what exactly they were doing.  A small part of her was reminded of the Vishkar Corporation and the mission in Rio de Janiero… the ruined favelas, the people without homes, the way she had felt when the city burned as she escaped the building, and the vague but gnawing feeling of betrayal that she hadn’t found a name for.  And something else.  The people in their rightful place, Sanjay had said.  Everyone according to their station.  It had been for the greater order, she knew.  But it stuck sometimes at night like a thorn in her side nonetheless, an uneasy feeling that it had not been quite right, and it had never left.  It was not a feeling she enjoyed revisiting, and besides, it was nothing like this and it was silly to think it might be.  She had faith in Winston and would not let it be shaken; despite potential missteps she could see he wished only for the best.  Vishkar too, but this seemed more simple, somehow.

After their first briefing Jamison’s mood had seemed dampened by the news that it was supposed to be kept quiet, but it had barely showed, nothing but the curl of his shoulders forward and the intense look in his eyes, pupils wide and eyes subtly narrowed as he mentally reviewed the job description.  He had behaved, surprisingly, though the metal fingers flexed at his side and she caught him glancing to Roadhog with a grin that he hadn’t quite managed to subdue that made her uncertain if he would actually manage to comply with orders.  It was somewhat concerning, but she reasoned with herself that he had repeatedly made attempts to follow orders since Ilios at the very least, team integration was feeling higher than ever, and despite whatever frustrations Jamison might have with what he would no doubt see as a boring mission he still seemed to be in a reasonably good mood, which was a bit of a puzzle in itself.

The trip to their temporary base outside of Numbani was uneventful and quiet and she’d taken the time to mentally review everything they knew and attempt to puzzle out what they could possibly be doing.  She didn’t like not having a plan of her own, even if Winston clearly had a plan for the team itself, and Numbani was such a peaceful place she couldn’t help but wonder what would possibly require the secrecy, let alone what might warrant the presence of heavily armed and skilled mercenaries in the form of the Overwatch team.  Perhaps an abundance of caution for an artifact, something related to the attack in Egypt.  It had been the site of the attempted theft of the Doomfist, after all.  At any rate, the secrecy had given her a sense of unease that lingered as they waited in the temporary base—an old, defunct Overwatch facility—outside of the city for Winston to make whatever final arrangements were necessary and give them the final briefing before moving out.

Jamison, it seemed, had taken what opportunities he could for some fun and was enjoying “testing” the modifications to the arm.  He had taken to punching whatever was in sight, punctuated by the occasional strained grunt followed by exceptionally manic giggles while Roadhog stood close by with his arms crossed over his chest, she assumed standing guard and waiting for him to do something too objectionable.  It was the most excited she’d seen him in quite some time, since before King’s Row, and he bounded past Roadhog chasing a basketball that he’d accidentally knocked to the floor in the middle of his spree of destruction.  It was a difficult thing to describe, the way it made her feel.  His exuberance had a strange charm to it and the fact that it was channeled towards something so simple gave her an odd sense of ease.  She found herself having difficultly restraining a smile despite the stress she could feel resting on her shoulders.

The others seemed as though they were doing their best to appear impervious to it all.  She could swear she felt a sense of tension in the room, however; Winston stood at a console making last-minute arrangements, his attention shifting noticeably to Jamison, his eyes following the man’s lanky form, brow furrowed and his lips pursed together, clearly somewhat worried although she couldn’t fathom why.  He lifted a broad hand to push his glasses up and lowered his gaze back down to the console with a small but poorly-concealed sigh. Reinhardt stood close to Lena near the door, his helmet off and his hands resting on the pommel of his hammer on the ground as they chatted amongst themselves.  Satya drifted over to them, careful to keep her distance from the chaos unfolding across the room just as she heard Jamison’s voice raising out over the otherwise mostly quiet space. 

“Oi Roadie, catch me!”  Jamison had somehow clambered up to the basketball hoop, grunting with the effort as he tried to pull himself fully up on top of it.  Roadhog’s voice rumbled out from behind the mask with a clear tone of irritation.

“No.”

“Aw c’mon mate, just once.”

“ _No._ ”

Jamison hung there for a minute, lanky body stretched out fully with his foot and peg-leg dangling a mere foot from the floor.  He let go and landed with a sullen _whump_ , letting his hands drop to his sides as he kicked a stray basketball with his prosthetic leg, muttering to himself.  Whatever personal insult he perceived lasted only very briefly and soon enough he was back to punching, seemingly without any long-term injury to his mood.  At some point it was exhausting even just to watch.

Lena and Reinhardt turned their attention to Satya as she got closer, Lena treating her to a beaming smile and Reinhardt offering a more subdued one of his own.

“Ready for the mission, love?”  Lena’s voice was light and energetic as usual, but Satya thought it felt a bit flat. 

“Yes, I suppose.  I don’t completely know.”  She watched Lena closely for a moment before going on, having gotten nothing from her expression.  “… but I am ready to do what is asked of me.”

Lena’s smile turned strangely at the corners, awkward and apologetic as she blew some strands of hair from her eyes as a distraction, having to take in a breath before she answered, seemingly relieved even to just say the words, encouragingly.  “It’ll all be explained soon enough, I’m sure.”

Reinhardt’s voice rumbled good naturedly and verged on a laugh as he replied.  “Hopefully we get moving before that boy destroys the whole base, anyway.”  His eyes followed Jamison as the man did a final round through the basketballs before stopping at Roadhog’s side and leaning against him, thrown partway over his folded arm, catching his breath.  The large junker growled lowly but didn’t offer any retaliation for Jamison’s choice of position.

Given the timing, Winston may have been taking advantage in the break in the chaos.  He drew himself upward and cleared his throat, the sound loud in the small space, and ran a finger across the screen of the console in front of himself, checking one thing or another one last time before looking up across the groups of them clustered together, raising his voice.

“Alright, everyone.  It’s about time we move out.”

Satya cast a glance over the faces of the others in an attempt to gain her bearings but had difficulty—the only thing she could read clearly was see the fade in Jamison’s expression to a dull and unimpressed look.  All of the others seemed closed off to her, somehow.

“I know there are some concerns about the secrecy, but rest assured it will all be explained in full once we’ve converged on the target location.  This is a stealth mission, so we won’t be using our own dropship or vehicles, we’ll be utilizing local transportation from trusted sources.  And because this is a stealth mission, no comms.  We can’t risk someone hearing something they shouldn’t, so we’ll be out of communication with each other during transport.  We’ll leave the emergency frequency open, but I have to stress it’s only to be used in an emergency, if you are engaged by enemy combatants.”  He looked around the room but no one seemed to have any question or complaint so he went on, glancing down to the console again as he did so.

“From here out we’ll be splitting up into multiple transports set to arrive at the target location in staggered groups.  We don’t want to make it look like a force is moving into the target area.  Once there, we’ll acquire the objective and we will split again into three.  Each group will return to base following a different path, departing at different times.  The drivers know the routes to take.  They’ve all been vetted.  We converge back at base and extract the target from the area.”  He paused, glanced up from the console, and lowered his voice, allowing it to shift from the businesslike tone to something more personable.

“I know this seems a little overboard, but we don’t completely know what we’re walking into here and it’s a rapidly developing situation, so this is all just an abundance of caution.  We aren’t expecting any kind of enemy contact, but this is delicate enough that we need to do everything we can to avoid it, and we also need to do everything we can to avoid causing a scene.  The last thing we want is panic.”  Wisely, he refrained from looking towards the two junkers and simply looked down at his console before going on.

“Basically, expect an easy ride, try to stay inconspicuous, and this one should be wrapped up in a couple of hours.” 

Jamison snorted but said nothing.  It did seem like an incredible amount of effort for… what, she realized she still didn’t know, but she trusted that if Winston was putting so much care into it it had to be important.  He was so very new to the role and it was easy to forget, sometimes, but all of his efforts seemed commendable, and she wondered briefly if the team ought to find some way to show him some appreciation sometime.  He had dealt with so much, and she didn’t even know the full details of it.  And he had welcomed her with open arms, in addition to more… questionable parties.  It shouldn’t go without recognition.  She felt a sudden pang of guilt… it was something that needed to be rectified.

As Winston withdrew she glanced across the rest of the room, looking over Mercy, Reinhardt, Lena, and Torbjörn’s features, found them all to be at ease, and adopted the same expression for herself.  Roadhog was as impassive as ever but Jamison leaned against him still, eyes half-lidded in mild irritation, his earlier excitement seemingly vanished into thin air.  She supposed the reality had finally sunk in that there would be no explosions and no chance to truly toy with his arm in any significant way.  Stranger still she realized that, somewhere in her, she felt sorry for it.

 

* * *

 

“I _hate_ this place.”

Jamison was stuffed in the back of a cab, the night lights of Numbani streaking by through the window, Roadhog seated next to him, characteristically silent.  “Who’d want to live in a place like this?  It’s just so _clean_.  And there’s bots _everywhere_.”  He made a small noise of frustration at the scenery, his own mention of omnics drawing a spark of irritation up his spine that culminated in a seemingly exaggerated grimace and a shudder that was almost comical before he ducked back from the window and glanced towards Roadhog.

“Why d’ya reckon we’re here, anyway?”

Roadhog grunted and rolled a shrug laboriously over his shoulders, his own eyes still pointed out over the city.

Jamison reviewed the briefing in his head.  Land outside the city, get in quietly, get what they came for, and get out.  _Quietly_.  WInston had stressed that point with a look towards Jamison, or at least he could have sworn as much.  He’d finished the rip-tire and brought it along anyway.  He felt better having it, and the gorilla hadn’t said he couldn’t.

Both the mission location and the fact that it basically wasn’t supposed to involve anything exciting had ultimately put him in a poor mood.  They’d landed the drop-ship outside of the city and moved into the formerly-defunct Overwatch mini-base—their final extraction point, they’d been told.  They hadn’t spent much time there before Winston had divided them into groups and sent them all on their ways to be shuttled to some central point, all going different routes.

It all seemed kind of stupid, really.  Would’ve been easier to just go in guns blazing, so far as he could tell.  A part of him wondered if it might be some kind of setup, the part of him that thrummed survival; get ‘em isolated, out who knows where, vulnerable to some random person they were supposed to trust.  It made him feel uneasy, but a part of him pushed it away with a shrug.  What’s another fight with someone who was after them anyway?  Not like they hadn’t been in their fair share of scrapes before.  And besides, the gorilla seemed alright.  Saved his life, anyway.  Not that he liked to think much about that.

“Couldn’t tell what the big ape was on about.  Didn’t really tell us a bloody thing honestly.”  Jamison pursed his lips and looked out the window again, reserving a particularly disgusted expression for the storefront of a restaurant as it went by, all shiny glass surfaces and colorful lights.  “Nothin’ but the word ‘extraction’, not much of a help.  What’s a place like this even have worth extracting?”

Roadhog’s shoulders raised and lowered again in a sigh that sounded somewhat uneasy, itself.  “Don’t know.  But I guess we’ll find out.”

 

* * *

 

It felt like it had been forever since Satya had ridden in a civilian vehicle.  Her transport for so long had been via the Vishkar Corporation, or for the past few months via Overwatch.  She had eyed the interior of the cab warily, but like many things in Numbani she had found it to be more or less pristine and it was hard not to be impressed with the quality.

The ride was uneventful and quiet; neither she nor Reinhardt seemed to feel particularly interested in chatting, and the two of them had ultimately turned their eyes towards their windows and watched the lights streak by in a comfortable silence, which she was grateful for.  The stress of not knowing was enough to make talking feel like a burden.  It took them a significant amount of time to arrive at their destination.  Wherever they were going it was in the heart of the city, and she understood now why they could not have simply flown overhead and collected whatever they were there to collect; the city sky was bright with vibrant lights that were nearly as good as a spotlight, and if they wanted to be inconspicuous she supposed they were doing the best they possibly could.  She also understood why simply teleporting the target wasn’t an option… they were well outside of the range of her teleportation abilities, and she supposed it was best to keep things relatively uncomplicated by restricting transport to vehicles anyway.  There were so many moving pieces involved, perhaps adding an additional unknown was unwise.

They reached their destination soon enough, a large building sprawling upwards like so many of the others, pointing like a needle into the clear night sky.  It was a hotel, she realized, distinguishable only by the presence of travelers moving through the main doors.  They passed them by as their vehicle pulled down a sidestreet, coming to a gentle stop near a smaller entrance where everything was not quite so bright and there was no foot traffic.  Despite it essentially being an alley she noted how clean it was, and still so brightly-lit.  She breathed in the air and found it fresh and clean.

When they exited the vehicle a woman was waiting for them near the door.  Reinhardt pulled himself from the cab with some difficulty as the woman smiled graciously and ushered them inside.  Although Satya supposed it would likely only be deemed acceptable by Numbani standards, to her eye the furnishings and settings looked almost lavish, and she enjoyed the orderly nature of it as they walked through the hallway.  She had decided she liked it here.  It wasn’t Utopaea, but it was still pleasant in its own way and it was clean and peaceful.  She could take more missions in a place like this, although a part of her recalled the more intense missions at Vishkar, prompting her to close her eyes at the memories.  Those… those were irreplaceable as well, although some for less pleasant reasons.  It felt good to have a use.  It felt refreshing to be able to practice her skill, to set herself new challenges, and to exceed them.

Their guide routed them down an additional level to the loading dock and her paces slowed as they rounded the corner to see three trucks waiting.  Everyone was present but the two junkers.  She assumed they simply had not arrived yet, and perhaps Winston had thought it best that they not be left unattended as much as could be helped.

Winston looked up as they arrived and his nostrils flared in a deep and pleased sigh, the genuine relief on his features prompting a warm feeling in her chest.  He didn’t smile, but she had the inkling that he might were he not so clearly stressed.  “Good, you’re here.  That makes for everyone except Junkrat and Roadhog.”  He lifted a hand from the tablet in his grasp and raised a large finger to scratch at the top of his head, an expression, she recognized abruptly, of worry.  “We should be heading out soon, which means I’ll go collect the cargo.  I think Mercy, Tracer, and myself will stay in convoy one.  Convoy two…”

The door to the loading dock opened suddenly behind them and drew all of their attention.  Satya could hear the cadence of Jamison’s steps before she could see him, seeming more staggered and heavy somehow.  She could hear the timbre of his voice, dangerous and low before she even had the chance to turn around and the suddenness of it threw her off guard.  It was a tone she wasn’t sure she’d heard before, not cut with any of his typical humor or even manic energy, just anger, and she blinked, lowering her eyes in intense concentration before looking towards him, and one word immediately flourished in her mind: resentment.  It wasn’t quite intense enough for it.  His words were addressed pointedly towards Winston with an accusation in the tone, harsher than she would have expected, slow and deliberate as if he wanted Winston to taste every single one of them.

“Oi.  You didn’t say anything about this _extraction_ bein’ a bot.”

Jamison was moving through the doorway to the loading dock, hands curled into fists at his sides and shoulders curled forwards, eyes narrowed.  His uneven gait made him look no less intimidating, rather it lent him the appearance of a wounded, snarling animal.  Roadhog followed along behind him like a dark shadow, his steps seemed heavier than usual somehow and the slow way his body moved gave each step a weight that she could feel in her bones.  His movement felt like the harbinger of dread, though the thought struck her as ridiculous—less than a week ago Jamison had been riding on Roadhog’s back, passing out popsicles, grinning widely at her with a wink at some simple pleasure…. nothing like this.  The two of them entered the room like a dark cloud and it spurred a sudden sense of extreme discomfort in her.  It all came on so suddenly but she knew something was direly wrong simply from the look on Jamison’s face and the way Roadhog simply seemed bigger somehow, the muscles of his forearms tensed and the dangerous arc of his shoulders.  She wasn’t sure exactly why—nothing about it seemed worth the response—and while it made her nerves feel raw a part of her was puzzling over it, her brow furrowed in confusion, glancing between the two and Winston for answers.

Everyone else remained perfectly still, and Winston lifted his gaze from the tablet in his hand to look at Jamison, his eyes flitting only briefly to Roadhog.  His jaw dropped as though he were about to say something before he snapped it shut with a look of gently confused resignation, his voice carefully even. 

“How did—”

“Should’ve kept your tin can on a leash, found it wandering around out near the lobby.  Hear the words ‘abrupt departure’, had one of those nervous kinds of voices.  Thought about how vague you’ve been and connected the dots.  Only made sense, more than anythin’ else.  So we’ve got a bot in trouble and you call in the calvary, no holds barred.”  A sarcasm had taken over his voice, a dismissiveness that didn’t falter as Winston stared back at him, calm and accommodating but unwavering.

Winston stood still for a moment before closing a hand over the tablet and took in another slow breath meant to calm himself, perhaps with the hope of calming the two junkers as well.

“Unfortunately the circumstances required me to keep certain things secret.  For our own safety as well as that of our… client’s.”

Perhaps it was just the tension affecting her, but Satya heard her voice interjecting before she had the chance to stop herself.  “Are we not trusted to have this kind of information, then?  Are we considered a liability?”  Her lips hesitated over the words but her brow furrowed gently as she thought about it more closely, unwillingly clinging onto that feeling from the Calado incident, the favelas, suddenly difficult to shake and her thoughts were too fast and too nebulous for the words.  She wanted to _ask_ , but the emotions were running too high and she closed her eyes tightly instead and lowered her head, her fingers moving to her temples, pressing lightly there.  This _was_ something good, unequivocally so.  Something that would benefit the world. 

Winston looked to her, eyeing her intently as he shook his head, even as she had taken to her withdrawn pose.  His voice was gentle but strong as he took a breath and addressed all of them.  “No, it’s not like that.  It’s not that we don’t trust you.  Allow me to explain—” 

He didn’t have a chance to elaborate before Jamison’s voice cut in like the cool steel of a knife.

“I think it _is_ like that, mate, at least for some of us.” His jaw tightened for a moment as his yellow eyes moved across Winston’s features before he abruptly dismissed whatever thought was moving through his head.  A sneer coiled around his voice like a venomous snake. “Well.  Whoever’s coming for the tin can can have it so far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in your job.”  A low rumble came from behind him as Roadhog offered a contribution, but it sounded less malicious somehow, not quite thoughtful, but grudging before Winston went on.

“I understand, but we need all hands on deck for this one, Fawkes.  I wouldn’t have asked you along if you weren’t needed.”  It was clear that Winston was doing all he could to attempt to de-escalate the situation, but it wasn’t working.  In fact, most of what he had said seemed to have agitated the junker more, and it seemed he had begun to realize it was a losing game.

Jamison’s lips curled back with a ‘tsch’ of growing anger at the use of his name and even with her eyes closed—perhaps moreso—she thought she could feel the tension emanating off of him, getting hotter.  “Yeah, you understand alright.  Didn’t _ask_ anythin’.  Said me an’ Hog needed to be here and just expected us to play along.”  There was an edge to it that she didn’t like that spoke to some deep current in him she wasn’t aware of and she opened her eyes carefully, lifting them to reassess the situation.  Roadhog still stood behind Jamison, having stood up a bit straighter, silent but no less menacing for it.  Jamison’s sharp teeth were bared in something vicious, his jaw terse from the effort not to snap them over the words as he said them.  “I don’t like bein’ lied to, mate.  Didn’t end well for the last business partnership.”  The words dripped with an unspoken history and he shook himself out abruptly and violently as if trying somehow to calm himself down.  It was a failure of an effort… but it was there.  “What’s so special about this one, anyway, to have us riskin’ our necks for it?”

Torbjörn had been standing in absolute silence, but when Jamison asked the question he spoke up as well, arms crossed over his chest.  “I’d like to know the same.”  His tone was nowhere near that of Jamison’s but it was begrudging all the same, not at risk of mutiny but certainly not happy with the situation.

Winston closed his eyes for a moment in something like a wince as he pressed his lips together over what was about to come, taking a deep breath to carefully set aside the disagreements coming from far too many of them.  “There are three, actually.  One for each transport.”  He didn’t wait long for that to sink in and simply went on; the hole was as deep as it was going to get and the only way out was up.  “They are disciples of Tekhartha Mondatta.”  Winston’s nostrils flared gently with the mention of the name as a look of regret passed across his features, his voice softening and his features every attempt to maintain calm and impassive and unfeeling, but failing.  The depth of emotion shook Satya and gave her a bout of uncomfortable empathy that she pushed to the side with a wince, trying to purge the look from her memories.  “Very prominent ones, his most respected students.  They were here visiting, to teach, but…”  He shook his head in a gentle kind of frustration, one borne from not understanding, before he went on, focusing on what was important.  “We received a very urgent request… tensions are already high after the assassination in London, so to have an attack here, where things between omnics and humans is peaceful… it could be devastating.  And it could be a powder keg.  The fact that whoever this is is targeting them in a place like this makes it clear that they know this, and it’s what they’re hoping for.  That kind of event happening here, where omnics should be safe, could cause unrest with serious repercussions across the globe.”

Jamison cut in again with a loud huff, his voice almost casual in its carelessness.  “Fine by me.”

Lena suddenly came to life with a gasp of a breath, a deep crease on her brow as her eyebrows knitted together in a look of pain. “Jamison, you can’t mean that…”

Torbjörn grumbled loudly with a breath and stood straight, fixing Lena with a look that seemed condescending to Satya’s senses.  “They might be some of the peace lovin’ ones, but they’re still omnics.”

Winston circled back around to the mission abruptly with a deep breath, looking between Jamison, Roadhog, and Torbjörn with absolute sincerity.  “We need everyone we can get.  The best case scenario is each convoy gets back to base without a hitch.  The worst case is one or more of the convoys are assaulted, but at any rate that would thin out their attacking forces.  Again, we just don’t know what exactly we’re dealing with here.  This is our best option.  This doesn’t just affect us, or the omnics.  And considering the possible ramifications, we’re taking this on pro-bono.”

Jamison blinked and nearly took a step back, his lips curling back in indignant disbelief.  “So we ain’t even getting’ _paid_ for this?  You want me to help these two-timing buckets of bolts for absolutely nothin’?”

Winston’s voice returned as a gentle growl as he shook his head carefully.  “You and Roadhog will be compensated, Fawkes, as well as anyone else who requests it.”

Lena had stepped forward behind Winston as he spoke and she placed her hand gently on the gorilla’s shoulder, her features open and pleading and her voice the softest Satya had ever heard.  “Jamison… _please_.  I know we don’t always agree on the way to do things but we’ve worked so hard to build some kind of peace—”

Jamison’s voice burst out in a barked laugh, the tone holding absolutely no humor.  “Peace?  Have I got news for _you_ , love… let me tell you about this idea of peace with these bots—”

Jamison took a step forward as if to confront the two of them directly, one aggressive slide of his peg leg, his body turned with the motion to favor his left arm in a gesture, a point directly towards Lena, his eyes wide and wilder and his tongue pressing for a moment at the sharp edge of a tooth, finger pointed accusatorily.  Satya’s head had begun to hurt from the tension and confusion and for a moment everything else disappeared, her feelings didn’t factor in at all: she could see with brutal clarity the importance of it.  The calculus involved.  Towards order.  For the greater good.  And it was far too important to be mired in the infighting, in whatever conflict Jamison and Roadhog and Torbjörn might have with the omnics.

She stepped forward just as Jamison did and placed her hand firmly against his chest, palm flat against his skin as she turned her own body to face him, blocking the path.  Her elbow bent with the motion to stop him as her feet remained rooted to the ground.  He was too hot under her touch and he paused, sucking in a breath that pulled his shoulders upwards with it and he was so _tall_ when he stood up straight.  She didn’t like the way he lowered his eyes to look at her, breathing shallowly, jaw set, eyes narrowed but the black of his pupils nearly drowning out the amber of his irises.  But he _stopped_ and in a moment of desperation she clung to that, finding strength in it.

It took a great deal not to back down but she stared up at him, her own breath dropping to the same pace as she kept his eyes, hardening her own features.  The words were clipped and clear.

“You said you owe me a favor, correct?”

His nostrils flared as he took in a slow breath and it seemed like he held it, considering her.  A long second went by as she held his gaze, unwavering.  It didn’t seem like he was going to… every second that passed by dug deeper into her ribcage.  When he found his voice it was a strange mixture of cold and hoarse, strained by how low it was.  “An’ you’re gonna waste it on this.” 

The tone… hurt.  It hurt and she couldn’t be entirely sure why, but there was little time to think of it.

It was hard enough to keep her expression strong and her eyes darted between his own as a faint crease developed on her forehead, but she kept her palm against his chest, forced her breathing calmer, looked him in the eye firmly.

It didn’t take him anything else to receive the message.  One corner of his lip twitched as he pulled slowly away from her, carefully, as though a single wrong move could break the tenuous agreement.  His eyes went back to Winston and then Lena as Roadhog’s hand came down on his left shoulder for reasons she couldn’t quite decipher.  He didn’t seem any calmer but it did seem he was respecting the agreement at least and he took a deeper breath, turning his attention and his body away from the three of them almost in a daze.  He shrugged the larger junker’s hand off of his shoulder and waved it away, casting him a sharp-toothed glance and snapping out a “Yeah, alright.”  The two of them turned and lumbered away to put a distance between themselves and the rest of the team.  No one said a word as they moved off.  It all felt too fragile to fully trust quite yet.

Lena moved slowly out from behind Winston, swinging outward so that she faced both him and Satya and put the junkers to her back.  Her expression was concerned in that innocent way she sometimes had and she glanced back towards the junkers once, over her shoulder, before returning her attention to the two in front of her in a very quiet sort of worry.  “D’ya think it’s gonna be an issue?

Winston made a thoughtful sound in his throat with an off-glance to Satya before looking back down to the tablet in his hand.  “I don’t know.  But we don’t have much choice other than to find out.”  A long moment passed in which Satya looked at him closely before her eyes shifted off into the distance, back to the junkers, a feeling of irritation buzzing along the length of her spine.  They were standing there, Jamison leaning against a railing with his arms crossed over his chest, staring forward into nothing with his chest moving slow but far too much over each breath, his teeth—she could tell—gritted behind the death mask of his jaw.  It wasn’t just anger.  It was something else as well, something that she felt wrench her gut in a sudden feeling she couldn’t quite put her finger on.   Guilt?  Regret?  It was uncomfortable to the point where it nearly made her feel sick.  Whatever good mood he had ever had was decimated and she found herself missing it desperately, no matter how obnoxious it could be.

Winston’s voice came to her through her thoughts and she shook off what she had been contemplating to hear.

“Thank you, Satya.”

She glanced at him in her peripheral vision, a genuine disapproval still resting on her conscience and her voice harder than she would have expected.  “You should not have kept this from them.”  There was real anger there, however slight, and she couldn’t be sure how much of it was on the behalf of the junkers and how much of it was solely her own.  Despite how much she agreed with the cause the omission had stung her as well, feeling something like being misled, feeling too familiar.

She could see Winston’s eyes close, his nostrils flared in a slow but distressed breath that he let out in a quiet sigh, his voice following after in the same grim, resolved tone.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this wasn't too boring, mostly just a setup chapter... woop woop serious business and the beginnings of character development! Next chapter is where the real stuff goes down.
> 
> Also I do think it's important to address Jamie's darker sides and particularly his beef with omnics because that's not something I think can just be overlooked but I love him and let's talk more about that shall we, and also Satya's experiences with Vishkar ok???
> 
> Also I feel like this chapter makes Winston kind of look like a bad guy and I’m really hoping it didn’t too much because he actually had perfectly valid reasons for not telling them and was just in a really rough spot decision-wise but I couldn’t get too into it in the chapter without it getting weirdly exposition-y? But yeah please know he did the best he could with a crap situation and I’m sorry Winston I really am.
> 
> I'm actually not sure if I see Junkrat as someone who would just kill an omnic on sight under most circumstances but the fact is when like 4 buttons get pushed in a row he's not going to be happy so 1) an omnic being involved, 2) him feeling lied to/manipulated by Winston, 3) Satya essentially prioritizing an omnic she doesn't know over him, and 4) the complete invalidation of his (somewhat legitimate) dislike of omnics = a very unhappy Jamison


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> playlist: [alt-j - left hand free (lido remix)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjJ97D6GVE)

Of the three different transports it was no surprise who was ending up on which.  Winston, Mercy, and Lena were to be on one transport, Torbjörn, and Reinhardt were to be on the second, and Satya, Jamison, and Roadhog were to be on the third.  She had no illusions that it was for any reason other than the agreement she had made with Jamison, or else someone more capable for handling them should things get out of control—Reinhardt, perhaps—would have been selected instead.  The idea that her presence might somehow keep either of the junkers from misbehaving toward their cargo felt wrong in her mind, it felt ludicrous, and she wanted to say as much to Winston but the decision had been made.  She had never felt frightened of them, not really.  Frightened, perhaps, of how reckless Jamison could be, frightened of whatever strange way his mind worked, but never frightened of _him_.  And Roadhog had always been more of a mystery that made her uneasy than someone to be feared.  Wise to be wary of him yes, but no need to be afraid.  Despite the intensity of Jamison and Roadhog’s moods she was still not frightened… not quite.  But she did wonder now what exactly they were capable of.

She wasn’t sure if she would dare to speak to the omnic that would be travelling with them in the short time they had between meeting and loading up.  Jamison and Roadhog had continued to keep their distance, their backs partially to the omnics as they entered, introductions made amongst the rest of the group, although Torbjörn gave minimal effort before he also excused himself.  While he was more accommodating to taking care of the task at hand, it seemed the idea of working with omnics was still enough that he would rather distance himself from it as much as possible.  She knew if she didn’t address the omnics now, however, there might not be any chance to; Jamison and Roadhog, she assumed would not be in a mood conducive to conversation.

Winston and the others were busying themselves with loading the trucks.  They would be the first to go, then Reinhardt and Torbjörn, and then Satya and the junkers.  The omnic who would be travelling with them was sitting in place, hovering lightly in the air, seemingly at peace in its position in spite of the tension in the room and the reason they were there in the first place.  For being under threat of assassination most of the omnics had seemed quite calm.  She peered at the one intended for their transport silently for a moment, an eye narrowing gently as she inspected it, and realized she was staring as it turned to look at her, expression entirely unreadable.  She smiled faintly as a show of good will and lifted a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, folding her hands in front of her body, uncertain how exactly to properly greet one-another in their culture.  She thought she might as well just go with the basics.

“My name is Satya.”

“And I am Kalsang.  It is a pleasure to meet you.”  The omnic’s voice was arranged like a chorus, various threads of tones woven together into something calm and soothing, and though its features remained inexpressive she thought she could sense a smile… an expression that felt easier to her to understand, somehow.  She returned a faint smile of her own.  It was a strange oasis in the chaos, and she breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, as well.”  She hesitated for a moment, gaze cast briefly downward.  It was difficult to find the words.  The situation felt very delicate, and a light crease formed on her brow as she attempted to navigate it, feeling far too unpracticed.  “I feel as though I should apologize…”

Kalsang lifted its hand gently, palm flat towards her in a gesture of comfort.  “Your friends have every right to be wary.”  It was surprising to hear… both the acknowledgment and the words the omnic chose.  She was not used to the concept of them as friends.  It was an idea that she hadn’t even considered, but now that it was said, despite how terribly the day had gone… well… she supposed they were.  Her eyes drifted towards Jamison and Roadhog, both of whom had glanced conspicuously in Kalsang’s direction, Jamison’s eyes still narrowed.  Intense.  “The omnic crisis was not so very long ago, and the scars are deep.  They will remain for some time, and we must be careful not to re-open old wounds.”  Kalsang unfolded its hands, gesturing them to the side in a gentle sweep, its movements seeming to follow the patterns of a circle in a way that seemed so orderly and soothing.  “It is our duty as omnics to aid in the healing process, which is part of why we requested your help as a precaution.  I believe most will realize the potential results of this in time, although perhaps for now it is not something that your friends see.”

Her gaze flitted uneasily from Jamison to Roadhog, who was unreadable as ever, and she turned her attention back to Kalsang with a gently furrowed brow.  “I’m afraid I can’t be so certain.”

Kalsang smiled again in some strange, implied way that seemed amused, and simply folded its hands together in front of itself with a low, humming noise like a chuckle, seemingly thoughtful.  “It is always difficult to understand new situations and accept change.  Perhaps some people are too stubborn to bend and too strong to break.”  The omnic looked from the junkers to her silently, gesturing with two palms to its sides in a motion that seemed meditative before continuing.  “As they say, ‘a flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.’  It simply is.  Despite how it may seem, perhaps sometimes it may be that the world needs to better accommodate other views before harmony can be reached.  If we listen, understand, and accept we may begin the process of reaching an agreement that benefits the world as a whole.”

It didn’t make much sense, really.  Things were simple enough; if there was a weed it was pulled.  Everything where it belonged, everything placed where it needed to be.  Her thoughts brought to mind Vishkar suddenly and what Sanjay had said: everyone according to their station.  But… humanity had put the omnics in their station, and although no one was completely certain why they had attacked the results had been disastrous.  And the image of the favelas stayed with her, stubborn and strangely painful.  They had offered them a better life.  They should have been better for it, and the fact that they hadn’t wanted it continued to disconcert her.

Kalsang had perhaps noticed her silence as it merely lowered its head in a small nod and added something, seemingly as an afterthought.  “When ego and pride are let go harmony may be found in the most unexpected places.  This applies to the relationship between omnics and humans as well as many other things.  But when neither side can let them go there is no progress, and often we are all harmed.” 

Her brow creased gently as she looked at Kalsang, her lips pressed together as she thought.  It was difficult to decipher despite the fact that it seemed like it should be simple and she could feel frustration slipping into the edges of her consciousness.  She had very little time to consider it, ultimately.  The half-finished and somewhat cryptic thought was left idle as it turned back to her with a gentle tilt of its head and glanced towards the other teams, already loaded and first beginning to move out.  “Perhaps we should begin the process.  I believe we have a fairly strict schedule to keep.”

She took a sudden breath as she recalled the mission and nodded, forgetting everything else, pushing it all out of her mind in favor of what needed to be done.  “Of course.  You should probably sit near me in the interest of a more peaceful journey.”  Her eyes moved to the junkers again and she caught those of Roadhog, or so she assumed, as he seemed to receive the unstated message, uncrossed his arms, and began lumbering over, Jamison trailing after him, his figure slumped somewhat under the weight of the tire and a simple sullenness, his body moving in that odd rhythm.  She couldn’t bring herself to wait for either of them to come closer; she didn’t like the idea of having to see their expressions up close, and so she followed Kalsang into the back of the truck quickly, disappearing into the half-dark.

The junkers seemed content enough to procrastinate out of sight for a short while longer.  She nearly said something, but soon enough Jamison was clambering up, followed by Roadhog, Jamison’s expression blank but seeming a little strained from the effort of it.  He sat at Satya’s other side with the tire still on his back, his body too warm in the cramped space, forced closer by Roadhog’s presence.  He didn’t look at her.  He seemed intent on simply staring at the closed doors of the truck, no doubt attempting to forget as much about the situation as was possible.

It wasn’t long before they were on their way and the ride was perhaps the most uncomfortable she had ever experienced. Above the sound of the engine and the noise of the road moving along beneath them Roadhog’s breathing filled the space from time to time as he tried to catch it, Kalsang sat wisely on her opposite side in silence… and Jamison.  Each small bump pushed them together, their legs brushing against one-another, and if she couldn’t feel the tension wired like cables in his muscles with every contact it might actually have been pleasant… a thought that, despite herself, she let herself hold onto.  She had very little else at the moment and the tenuousness of their agreement—the resentful way he had looked at her—felt ominous and horrible and she wanted the image out of her mind.  Despite his resolute silence his fingers tapped restlessly against the grenade launcher slung across his legs, beating out a cadence that was largely drowned out by the movement of the vehicle.  It didn’t stop Roadhog from reaching out after some time and shoving his large hand over Jamison’s with a grunt with a clear message: shut up.  Jamison exchanged a silent, lethal glare with him.  It was impossible to tell if Roadhog reciprocated, but at any rate, the tapping stopped, apparently through great effort.

And so it was silence.  She remained seated straight but allowed her eyes to slip closed and tried her best to ignore the context of the situation, but every so often she found herself leaning an elbow or a shoulder ever so slightly closer to Jamison’s side, so subtle that it was undetectable, and so little that it took her some time to notice, herself.  And then, disappointed with herself, she pulled herself resolutely away with a gentle sigh.  Whatever illusion of conection she’d created was a farce.  It was difficult to understand him sometimes, but the message was absolutely clear: he was deeply disappointed and most likely furious with her, and a part of her couldn’t blame him.  She didn’t know, or couldn’t remember why he held such a hatred for omnics, but even that surely had a _reason_.  She had read his file.  She had read _everyone’s_ file when she was recruited, and she could not wrap her head around the sloppiness of her memory.  It didn’t seem like her, not to know.  Had she written him off so early?

The intensity of his feeling towards omnics was far greater than she would have expected and she didn’t agree with it, but a part of her felt as though she ought, at least, to try to understand.

They had been on the road for quite some time, lending the mission a premature sense of success and finality.  She had counted the minutes and by all measurements it seemed as though they were well over halfway back to base, suggesting no incoming threats, and by her estimates nearer to the edge of town in the less populous, more industrial regions.  She had allowed herself to be as complacent as the situation would allow.  The comms had been silent, suggesting no trouble from the other two groups, and she assumed Winston’s convoy might already be back to base.  In a way it probably should have been no surprise that the gentle whine of sirens eased their way into the night sounds, slowly growing louder and closer. 

Maybe it was just how the rest of the day had gone, but something about it made her feel like a failure yet again, something she should have noticed sooner or somehow been prepared for, or able to prevent.  Of course, she couldn’t have possibly controlled outside circumstances on a mission like this, but the feeling was there all the same.

It was police, by the sound of it.  One car, she thought.  Still possibly a coincidence, she supposed, though it didn’t seem likely.  But stranger things had happened.  She could feel Kalsang lift himself gently beside her to attention, an idle movement that radiated calm.  On her left she felt the way Jamison’s forearms tensed, grasped more closely at the grenade launcher, his spine pulled slowly straight as the sound grew louder.  She chanced a sidelong look at his face and found his eyes gently narrowing, features pinched as if in careful observation, his lips curled back just slightly to show the gleam of his gold tooth.

The sirens shut off abruptly.  Their truck was stopping.

As it slowed, before it had even come to a full stop, Jamison was on his feet, the rip-tire on his back, slinging the grenade launcher off his shoulder and making towards the door with a swift certainty that caught her off guard.  Her mind came suddenly to the present again just soon enough for her to lean forward quickly, her gauntleted hand grabbing the top of the grenade launcher unthinkingly as she whispered under her breath.  “What are you doing?  We are supposed to stay inconspicuous.”

He looked at her for the first time since the loading dock and she almost wished he hadn’t.  His features were blank and cold and unfeeling as he tossed his head to the side gently, eyebrows raising.  “Hate to break it to you, but we have a truckload of conspicuousness headin’ our way.”  He tried to shake the grenade launcher out of her grasp but failed, giving her a withering look when her hand remained.

“What on earth do you mean?”

Roadhog was already on his feet, following suit, nudging roughly past Jamison in the small space and the movement causing her to shift, her weight bumping into the omnic beside her as they did so.  She glanced between the two of them with a strange emotion—a rising sense of both trepidation and anger, brow furrowed as she tried to understand.

“Traffic’s gone.  You hear any of it?”  He paused as if to double check, head tipped and features still perfectly dull as he tested the sounds in the air before muttering on.  “Three or four cars stopped, too.  Either we been sold out or someone caught us up.  But it’s not cops.  I know cops.  These ain’t cops.”

He shook her hand free from the frag launcher with ease but without the viciousness she might have expected and she braced herself as he turned with a sense of purpose, reared his prosthetic leg back and kicked the locking mechanism at just the right angle in a way that seemed practiced, sending the back doors flying open and letting in the cool air from the city night, the peacefulness of it jarring starkly against the crash of the doors coming to a halt against the side of the truck.  It nearly masked the sound of the other cars coming to a stop, the ones she had missed, her hands already weaving a shield for Kalsang beside her as her mind raced through the possibilities.  They were stuck in the back of a truck, likely surrounded by an unknown number of threats, uncertain of their weapons or any other resources.  Their mission was to deliver the omnic safely.  She would not fail it.

Jamison was already in the street behind the truck, apparently without any concern as to what might be waiting there for him or what his loud entrance might have spurred, having hopped down the short distance from their vehicle, grenade launcher in hand and his body moving in a casual strut as he turned to face off to his right.  The grenade launcher was pulled to the side as he shrugged, that same gesture he’d shown her in King’s Row, an open invitation, surprisingly nonthreatening considering the scenario.  “G’day, ladies and gents.  Anything I can help you with?”  His tone was more familiar, humorous… but forcibly so, she noticed, surprised that it was something she could discern at all.  Despite the scenario and even with the effort he was clearly putting into it she was strangely relieved to hear it as it gave everything a sense of normalcy that had been severely lacking.  It seemed almost like him.

Roadhog had lumbered from the truck behind him and slid out into the street as well, landing on the pavement with a grunt and a rumbling breath as he shifted his chain into his hand.  The truck swayed a bit as he stepped off and she was still catching her balance when she heard a low voice, demanding but confident as well, as though the person speaking knew they were in control and was not in any particular hurry about it.  It was an American accent, and a voice she didn’t recognize.

“We’re just here to pick up some cargo we believe you have that was supposed to go to us.”  The voice was rough but attempted a similar friendliness with an edge, lilting over the words just as Jamison had his with only subtle variations.  She could hear the boots.  The sound of doors sliding open.  Too many, not enough input to count. 

There was no allusion to the idea that they might be law enforcement, or that they might be ignorant as to what the truck was carrying.  It seemed the concept had already been dropped aside, pointless now that both parties clearly understood the situation.  She briefly wondered about the state of the driver but shook the thought away.  If something had happened to him here was nothing to be done there now.  Her fingers twitched, her mind pulling itself back to reality, her eyes focusing on the inside of the truck and the turrets that suddenly appeared there as she weaved a thin net of them, uncertain that they would have any tactical benefit, but just in case.  The photon projector was at her side, still holstered; she wanted her hands free in case another opportunity for a better placed turret showed itself.

She could see the edge of Jamison’s shoulder, his prosthetic leg, the ends of his hair but the rest was out of view to her.  But she still could see the way he slung the grenade launcher up against his shoulder, not pointed, it seemed, at the speaker but within easy position for firing off a shot while still attempting to make it look casual.  Roadhog did something similar as he lifted the hook over his back and gently scratched at the exposed skin with a dull point in the metal, seemingly relaxed with the motion.  Looking relaxed was an effect Jamison hadn’t quite managed.  Despite the words and gestures the threat held in the curves of his body was far too obvious.  She had seen him succeed before, holding a casual conversation under dire circumstances, but he didn’t seem to be acting the part very effectively now. 

It was impossible to hold herself back.  She leaned forward where she sat so that she could see every single second of his expression from her new vantage point, the way his lips were curled back in what was ostensibly a friendly smile but from the side she could see the way it pulled back at his lips, too far, his eyes too wide.  It was a grimace more than anything else and a kind she had never seen, difficult to pin down but torn, perhaps, worried, and his shoulders hunched as if ready to propel himself forward were it necessary as Roadhog stood fully stoic behind him, his head cocked to the side.  It was a look that made her breath catch in her chest and she watched, breathing shallowly.  Kalsang remained beside her alert yet calm it seemed, despite the scenario.

“Dunno if I know what you’re talkin’ about, mate.  Ain’t nothin’ here but us.”  A small laugh began and then ended abruptly, subdued for some reason.  The other voice cut the silence that followed with a quiet laugh of its own before the tone smoothed out, lazy and calm in a well-practiced way.

“Fawkes, wasn’t it?  And your pal, Rutledge?”  From her vantage point she could see Jamison’s shoulders lift and the muscles of his chest twitch as he pulled himself a bit higher, the tension in him pulling his body upwards as the other man went on.  “Surprised to see the two of you out in the open.”

Jamison’s eyebrows raised lazily, arching upwards in sequence before settling for an expression that was purely disinterested.  “Don’t think I recognize ya.”

“Oh, we haven’t met.  It’s hard to miss the news that comes down, though.  I have to admit, you being with this whole organization is a surprise.  Is it still called Overwatch, or is it something different now?  But I guess you had to do _something_ to keep pretty much everyone off your back.”

A giggle escaped Jamison but it was lower, quieter than usual.  Annoyed, chasing the tail end of his earlier anger.  “Nah mate, we’ve just gone legit.  Real businessmen.  That’s where the money’s at.”  His sharp teeth remained gritted, so close to a grin but not quite managing to flourish.  “Speakin’ of, what exactly can I help you with?”  The words weren’t an offer but a threat and she could see the muscles of his jaw pulled taut.

“You can hand over that omnic.”

The voice didn’t offer any further detail and the silence that ensued was deadly.  There were no conditions, just the demand.  But the longer Jamison and Roadhog waited the harder her heart beat in her chest and she leaned forward carefully so that she could see him better, noiselessly, silent.

She could see his grip on the grenade launcher tighten and his smile was as she expected it—teeth gritted in a poor mimicry of the expression, eyes narrowed, jaw locked.  His voice ground over the words like he was loathe to say them, one corner of his lips curling backwards in a sneer.  She couldn’t tell who it was meant for and the thought struck her hard, square in the chest: she wasn’t sure where any of the emotion was directed, and it could rightfully be at any of them.  Kalsang, Winston, possibly even her.  His tone seemed impossible to decipher, the target of his irritation equally vague, and her breath came out as a silent gasp as she listened, trying to catch it desperately.

“Don’t have one.”

A laugh burst from their conversation partner and it only seemed to make Jamison more irritable, his fingers fidgeting around the trigger but the launcher still pointed more or less safely to the side.  The voice went on.

“Look.  Jamison.  Can I call you Jamison?  I have a lot of respect for you.  You’ve done a lot of… _fun_ things.  Wouldn’t have wagered someone like you to have a soft spot for the machines, but what do I know?  Maybe you are more of the forgive and forget type.”

Jamison’s jaw worked over the statement as his lips abandoned the grin for a thin, strained smile, but even that expression was fading fast despite his dogged attempt to keep it.  It only grew more tense as the other man went on.

“The point is, we’d like that bot to be dead.  You might be wondering why, but I think the more important question is what’s another dead bot, anyway?  We make them, they attack us, kill our people, take our homes, and what?  We just let them live with us now?”

Satya attempted to force herself to breathe more calmly but was having difficulty.  Jamison’s face was hard to read, too hard for her despite how familiar she had become with it, but he was letting the man speak and every last facsimile of a smile or grin or facetious display of pleasantry was gone leaving only an open, intent expression there instead.  The man was baiting him, she realized, and her lips parted as she tried to think of something to say and found nothing.  There was a history there she didn’t fully understand and she had no idea what words to say, and even if she did she was sure she would somehow say it wrong.  She closed her eyes tightly against the thought and reminded herself: breathe.  Focus.  Such thoughts would do nothing to help the situation, and it was the most important now to remain under control.  Beside her Kalsang began to emit a gentle thrum, a low tone that should could feel in her body, something constant and unnoticeable by anyone who wasn’t closeby, something soothing.  She caught her breath and listened as the man continued on, eyes still closed out of caution.

“Not like there aren’t plenty of them, not like they should even _be_ here.  Not like they couldn’t swarm over someplace like the Outback anytime they so pleased.  From what I’ve heard there’s nothing much there left to stop them.”

Roadhog was the first to move; the hook latched back to his side as the scrapgun suddenly appeared in the other hand, holding it towards the unseen target just over Jamison’s shoulder in a way that, if fired, would undoubtedly cause some serious damage to his ears.  Jamison seemed unconcerned and in fact laughed suddenly and more familiarly, eyes growing wide and wild with his friend’s implicit threat, his own hand curling closer around the grenade launcher, holding it into the crook of his elbow as his teeth gritted cheerily over a few words, his voice sing-song.  “Might be more there than you think, mate.”

The threat didn’t seem to deter the other speaker.  In fact, his voice stayed low and smooth, perhaps even easier than before, and he dropped his tone to something more conversational. 

“We _are_ in a little bit of a hurry, but I’m interested in offering you a deal.  We could use someone like you.  Seems to me you have an understanding of how the world works and you’ve got a level of expertise that’d be an asset to us.  We’d be happy to have both you and Rutledge on the team, and I think you’d like the projects we’re involved in.  We pay well and we do what we want for the causes important to us.  And I feel like we agree on what’s important.”

Jamison stared at the speaker still outside of her field of view, his breathing slow and intense, his eyes gently narrowed.  Roadhog stood perfectly unmoving behind him, his elbow still on Jamison’s shoulder and the scrapgun pointed towards the man she couldn’t see.  It was silent save for the gentle thrum of Kalsang behind her and she realized with sudden clarity just how alone they were, the two of them in the back of the truck, the only things she felt were certain in the world at that moment.  Her breathing, so carefully maintained, came to a slow stop as she realized, what if she had been wrong?  What if she had misjudged, misunderstood everything leading up to this, and all of her interactions with the two of them had meant something completely different?

Jamison’s laugh shattered everything.  The high-pitched giggle sounded a little unhinged, but not in a way she was used to.  It wavered as he jerked his head unevenly to the side to try to dispel something.  It sounded like exhaustion, real and genuine, and he tried again, the laugh coming more normally and somehow more calm the second go around.

“Mate, if I were you I’d turn around, because it’s been a helluva day and we might just have to kill every last one of ya.”

The sudden smile that touched his features was gracious and genuine and she knew for a fact that that was exactly what he intended to do.

There was no time for thinking, for processing the look on his face or the way his first attempt at a laugh had staggered almost as if wounded or the words or the simple rejection of the offer, as if it had been nothing.  Her voice was low and quiet as she looked to Kalsang with an intense sense of life in her eyes.  “You must stay here, no matter what happens.  Our mission is to protect you, and we cannot afford to fail.”

The thrum continued to emanate from Kalsang, seemingly more deeply, and she breathed easier under the constant sound of it, her focus returning as the world once again came to a single point around her: the mission.  Its voice was gentle as it responded.  “I will do as you ask to the best of my abilities.”

The thought occurred to her that the emergency channels were still open, and although the unknown man had suggested there were more forces out there, if there was ever a time to use it it seemed like it was now.  She pressed a hand to her ear and clipped a few simple words whispered across the airwaves: “We are under attack by an unknown force of significant number and firepower.  We require assistance.”

As her hand left the communication device all of her focus shifted back to the junkers.  Things felt as if they were in slow motion again, as if they were in Ilios, but this time rather than lock itself down her mind darted forward, grasping firmly onto what she knew.  They hadn’t started shooting yet—the standoff hadn’t quite ended—but she knew it would all become chaos in far too short a time.  The turrets in the truck would do little to help against enemy bullets and she stood, darting to the side of the truck to be within Jamison and Roadhog’s peripheral vision, uncertain if she would be seen given their focus on the unseen speaker and whatever waited behind him.  There was no way to tell if her involvement would be welcome.  There was no way to tell if it was needed given her complete lack of information on anything on the other side beyond her field of view, but everything in her insisted with absolute certainty that if she did nothing the results would be dire for all of them. 

Jamison’s prosthetic arm extended at the elbow, the grenade launcher following suit and traced a line towards the unseen man in front of him, slowly and deliberately.  She could see Roadhog’s thick finger edge down against the trigger, gingerly, not enough to compress it.  The gun was still propped against Jamison’s shoulder near his ear and she gritted her teeth, a deep furrow working its way into her brow at the sheer idiocy of it—the inevitable damage to Jamison’s ear, the fact that the lankier junker was in the foreground in the first place, everything.  She could easily shield him, the both of them, and buy them some time, but the shields could only take so much damage.  There was her photon projector as well, though she was hesitant to use it prematurely and without knowing just where the enemy stood.

“I see.”  The two words from the unseen voice were all it took and she moved quickly, suddenly, whipping her hands in an artful flick that covered both Jamison and Roadhog in a pale blue light as a hail of bullets suddenly erupted upon them, bouncing off as she watched, briefly stunned by the surprise of how many there were.  Jamison had turned to the side as Roadhog’s scrapgun discharged, sending a spray of metal projectiles towards whatever unseen force was beyond her view.  Bullets pinged off of the back of Jamison’s tire as he continued to turn until the frag launcher was pointing in the correct direction and he lobbed a volley of grenades into the enemy force as he stepped backwards to put some distance between them.  She could hear explosions and screams and pulled her photon charger from the holster, stepping forward with every intention of stepping into the fray.  The side of the truck nearest Jamison and Roadhog was suddenly riddled with bullet holes as projectiles whizzed through the empty space and she stepped back, cursing quietly to herself under her breath.  Kalsang remained in the back corner of the truck, seemingly safe, and she glanced back at the omnic with a hard expression, warning it to stay in place.

She could see bullets angled nearly towards the entrance of the truck whizzing past Roadhog as he piled the scrapgun full of a handful of miscellaneous debris—nails, screws, scraps of metal—and his hand found the crank at the side of the weapon.  As some enemy soldiers came into view shots from the scrapgun rang out in rapid succession with a sound so loud she could have sworn it made the ground shake with each full rotation of the crank and bodies fell in front of him in succession, three easily, a fourth and fifth staggering back before raising their shields.  It was all loud enough that she entirely missed the crack of a gun that sent Jamison backwards and she could feel the shield she had crafted for him falter.

Jamison was farther back and on the ground with a grimace on his features, flung against the tire in a position that looked beyond uncomfortable to the point of being dangerous, but he was sitting up, the effort of it made far more difficult by the weight on his back.  His muscles tensed and strained, his left arm moving to his side where a bullet had grazed him when the shield failed and pressed against it hard to gauge the flow of blood.  He found it not to be too terrible as he pulled his hand away and made his way to his feet, crouched forward with his prosthetic hand on the ground and his knees bent, the tire at an extreme angle behind him.  It only took a few quick flicks of his left fingers to unclip whatever mechanisms held it in place and it slid down his back over his head, landing with a heavy whump and a jarring metallic sound in front of him, acting somewhat like a shield, albeit one filled with explosives. 

But he didn’t use it, not in the typical way.  Instead his hands grasped the thick tread of the tires, nestled under the dull ends of some of the spikes, and with a wordless, strained sound of effort he lifted it up in front of himself and began walking forward towards the forces attempting to flank Roadhog.  Bullets clanked against the metal of the front of it and she had the sudden thought, nearing the edge of the safety of the truck’s wall and nearing the limits of where the enemies’ bullets trajectory had punched holes through the metal to stand, hands and body moving smoothly as if in a dance as three turrets came to existence on the front of his makeshift shield.  He was getting close to the remaining members of the opposing forces, close enough that almost immediately each turret shot out a bright beam of light with that familiar noise, followed by a scream and sounds of panic from other voices.

Now was the time.  The sound of bullets from the enemies facing Jamison had stopped but she crafted a quick shield around herself as her right hand pulled the photon projector from her side and she slipped effortlessly from the truck, her other hand coming upward to stabilize the weapon.  She could see them now, still four of them in front of Jamison, still six near Roadhog, some in front and some flanking, and she focused the beam from the projector where it would do the most damage, immediately trapping one agent between the beam of light and those from the turrets, slowing him to a gradual stop before he made a strangled noise and fell to the ground.  The beam from Satya’s projector immediately moved to the enemy agent behind him and the process began again as a bullet struck one of the turrets on the tire and then a second, destroying them.  The agent fell anyway under the force of the photon projector.

Two bullets struck the shield around her with force and her features pulled into a wince, though her body ignored the pain of it.  There were only two soldiers left in front of her and she pulled the trigger back, holding it with gritted teeth as she could feel the energy build inside it, thrumming in much the same way Kalsang had done.  It was calming too in a way but also thrilling, similar to the dance of weaving hard light, something flowing through her as if it had always meant to do so and was merely looking for an outlet, a perfect conduit.  She could feel it reach her fingertips as they brushed against each other in succession around the grip and she released the trigger.  A wide ball of blue light burst from between the white plates that served as a muzzle.  The agents were too distracted with Jamison to notice it as it moved towards them from the side, slow but inevitable.  They noticed too late, and the space in front of her was suddenly empty as their bodies hit the ground, the path open and clear before her.  Her breath released slowly as her eyes flitted to the side to address the remaining few.

Roadhog had removed one of the flanking enemies on his left and the second looked as though she would not last long, leaving four agents remaining, and Jamison was close to all of them.  The final turret on Jamison’s tire had been destroyed but he was barreling towards them nonetheless, tire still held like a shield, and all she could see was his back—the ragged shorts, the single boot and the peg leg pounding at the pavement with the ever-present limp—the effort each step looked as though it took with the tire held in front of him.  He was in the line of any shot she had and Roadhog was busy with the enemy of his own and she could feel his hard-light shield flagging as the energy flowing through her weakened.  He was close, nearly enough to drive the tire into two of them but the others were farther away, backing into an alcove behind a column.  She realized that if he pinned the two in front of him the others would be at his flank and would have a clear shot at his side and with an unartful grip of her hand forward his hard-light shield came back to life, fully charged, this one wider than before as she concentrated with both hands, forming something closer to a bubble.

Something else moved down her spine and she felt it in her fingertips, another burst of energy, this one foreign and strange, and she turned to look over her shoulder.  Kalsang was there, its hand lifted, palm straight, and as she looked back to Jamison she could see him surrounded by a thin gold sheen atop the blue of her own.

Jamison slammed the tire suddenly into the ground in front of himself, two of the enemy agents on the opposite side of it and the column to his left, the remaining two agents on the other side of the tire.  The soldiers in front of him seemed in shock with guns raised but without shooting as he moved in one smooth motion, pulling himself straight, slamming a mine against the column beside him facing the agents opposite, and with the detonator in his left hand he raised his right.  She could swear she saw his head tilt to the side as the fingers wiggled in a small wave and somehow despite the difference in the brief silence she thought she heard the ‘click’ of the detonator.

The column exploded with the mine and Jamison disappeared in a pile of glass and debris, all four of the soldiers doing the same.

The sound from Roadhog’s gun stopped abruptly as the final soldier in front of him fell.  She was moving before she realized it, running toward the wreckage.  The building itself remained solid, but the column and the alcove above it had been decimated, and enough debris had fallen to cover most of the soldiers save for two, who were still partially buried but likely had not survived.  Jamison had been in the middle of it where the debris seemed the thickest.

She felt a rising sense of panic in her chest despite the gentle vibration of Kalsang as he followed close and she had lost track of the rest of the situation—not aware if there were any more threats, not able to stop and check. 

Before she could reach the pile of debris she saw it begin to shift, plates of glass and more solid material clattering against one-another as they moved and fell under their new angle and she stopped suddenly where she stood, unable for some reason to continue forward, her feet rooted to the spot.  A thick metal spike raked through the material like the prow of a boat and in its wake a wave of rubber followed—the thick tread of Jamison’s tire.

Jamison’s distinctive shape was wreathed in smoke as it emerged from the rubble, his body drawing itself upwards, looking inhuman hunched under the weight of lifting the tire and debris, completely covered in dust and ash, straightening out slowly but with strength, still-lit embers on his shoulders, the ends of his hair scorched.  The strangely-colored lights of the city and the dark soot coating his skin left all but the most obvious features disappear and she was left with a vision of him standing, still curled, mouth parted, sharp teeth, yellow eyes stark against a dark, burnt canvas.  He looked like something straight from hell and despite it her heart jumped into her throat.  She felt as though she had never been happier to see him.

Blood had stained his left side where the bullet had grazed him and there were fresh gashes on his chest, shoulder, and back from shards of glass that had raked over his skin after the shields had failed.  He didn’t seem to notice them.  The sight of him standing there, fully emerged and entirely still brought her back to life and she sprinted towards him, feet coming to a stop at the edge of the debris before she took some careful, ginger steps across a foot or so of debris so that she was within reach.

She should be angry; she should be furious, in fact, but it wasn’t in her.  True, there had been dangers to other ways of dealing with the situation, but he had to have chosen the riskiest possible solution, or at least it seemed so to her.  It was difficult not to wonder at his apparent lack of self-preservation, but it was a thought for a different time, and one she had already had without reaching a solution.  Her gauntleted hand reached for his prosthetic, wrapped around the palm of it, and pulled.  He didn’t move but turned his head to look at her, shoulders still rising and falling with each breath, his features still intense as though he hadn’t quite left the fight yet. 

She pulled harder, until his foot finally moved, however haltingly.  It wasn’t working as quickly as she wanted it to.

“Come here.”

He looked up to her, gritted his teeth and eyed her in a strange way.  She supposed he might be in shock and felt a sudden pang of… something.  Something she couldn’t or did not want to define.  She lowered her voice to something gentle, far more calm than she felt, somehow filtering out the adrenaline running through her veins.

“Come here, Jamison.”

He shook his head as if to clear it and blinked heavily.  It seemed to bring him back to reality and he looked over his shoulder at the pile of mangled material, the tire still sticking up straight out of the debris, and followed her without looking, dragged along by the prosthetic.  There was something sharper in his eyes again and he looked toward Roadhog with an intense inquisitiveness.  Roadhog simply nodded in affirmation and Jamison’s shoulders dropped slightly, relaxing.

Satya had brought him to their transport vehicle and once there let go of him, indicating with her hand the edge of the truck bed and already bringing her hands together, eyes focused on them as she spoke again, still gentle but somehow more businesslike.  “Sit down, please.”

He did as he was told immediately and sat down against the metal surface with his elbows on his legs, his arms held limp between them near his knees, his shoulders slumped.  The embers on his shoulders had died out and drifted off, leaving strangely bare spots where they had lightly scorched his skin, leaving behind parallels to his freckles, light against the dark of the soot on his skin.  None of the cuts were terribly worrisome, she was relieved to find, but some were enough to require attention before Mercy showed up… something she both assumed and hoped would come soon.

Satya slipped onto the side of the truck bed beside him and lifted her hands to the cut on his shoulder without quite touching it, her fingertips pressing together in hesitation as she looked at it.  Deep enough to require stitches, she knew, but bleeding to a degree that wasn’t dangerous.  Her lips pressed together gently as she looked from it to the one on his chest and took a deep breath, raising her eyes to look at his own.  His gaze was pointed straight ahead of himself and she took the opportunity to look his features over closely—his angular features dark and covered in soot, his blonde hair slicked back from the explosion and held that way by the dust, the singed ends a stark black—before shaking herself mentally.

“I will need your assistance.”

The gentle verbal prod elicited no response from him but a slow, labored blink and so she tried again. 

“… if you could please…”

Roadhog was suddenly at his opposite side and he rested a broad hand on Jamison’s right, uninjured shoulder.  The lanky junker blinked once more but with more life in him and sat up straight suddenly, turning his head to look at Satya wide-eyed and alert.  She glanced towards Roadhog uncertainly but nodded.  It was difficult for her to tell where they stood, and as she looked at him she realized that he, too, was bleeding.  Two perfect circular wounds dotted his right shoulder, but as he saw her looking he raised his left hand in a wave, dismissing the thought before she voice it, his voice rumbling hoarsely over the words.  “It’s fine.”

 She looked at him uncertainly for a moment longer before her attention turned back to Jamison.  It was somewhat jarring for him to look both present and blank, without any of the previous resentment and anger on his features and yet aware of his surroundings, and she reached out carefully to take his prosthetic hand in her gauntleted fingers once again, the white armor smudged with soot as she drew his fingers to his left shoulder where the cut ran diagonally across the skull tattooed on his arm.  “Roadhog may need to help, but if you could press the skin together I can staple the wound closed.”

The prosthetic fingers twitched, found their mark, and closed just as necessary for her to craft some hard-light staples which dug into his skin and held the wound closed as he let go perfectly.  She leaned back, taking some satisfaction in the work and feeling better for the simple fact that he would be patched up on a temporary basis in a minute or so.

She was distracted by the snort that came from him and she raised her eyes in time to see him look from her to the staples in his arm to the tips of his prosthetic fingers, marred with soot and a bit of blood.  His lips twitched, attempting a smile that ultimately only succeeded as something wry and he spoke through sharp teeth, his jaw only slightly terse.  Were she more able in the moment perhaps she might have noted the bitterness there as well, but there was simply too much to take in and she looked at him in confusion, her brow creased in concern as a half-formed hard-light construct intended for his chest disappeared between her fingers.

“Well.  I reckon that’s one way to get a field test.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so this was supposed to be part of the last chapter but things got a little carried away  
> welcome our new omnic friend
> 
> the next chapter should be a little more lighthearted, this one was just a challenge
> 
> repercussions in the next chapter! I just needed to get this one out


	16. Chapter 16

Mercy arrived with Winston and Reinhardt shortly after the end of the firefight, delayed by the need to still keep their presence as quiet as possible.  Despite the massive amount of noise and damage they had created they’d been lucky to be near the outskirts of the city, an industrial district, at night.  The incident could be skewed as some kind of accidental explosion, Satya supposed; the bullets had really only left their marks on the truck, instead shattering the glass of the nearby buildings.  And of course, the actual explosion had caused some serious damage.  If Winston didn’t have connections with local law enforcement she was certain any kind of cover-up would be impossible, but his mannerisms suggested there was a positive relationship there.  They would just have to wait and see.

It was far too close of an encounter for any of them to be satisfied with it.  Winston, though, seemed deeply relieved after there had been some time to build some calm at the scene, after all of them had been accounted for, and especially after seeing the sheer number of the force they had gone up against.  Mercy had examined Jamison and Roadhog first and worked her magic, removing bullets, patching up, and commending Satya on her quick thinking with the shields and the staples.  It was likely Jamison’s cuts would heal without scars, particularly after Mercy was done with them, and the myriad scrapes and scratches on both junkers from flying debris would require very little care. 

While the others were busy Mercy pulled Satya to the side to examine her and, finding only bruises from the bullet impacts to her shields she smiled gently, breathing a sigh of relief.  “It was very lucky that you were here.  I was concerned with the decision to place the three of you together, but I believe it was the best possible option.”  She lowered her eyes and her voice gently despite their distance from the others, her expression turning thoughtful as she continued on, grateful but with hints of regret.  “Thank you, Satya, for all that you did.  I understand that it was more than simply the fight.  Please don’t think that your efforts went unnoticed.” 

The moment of sincerity left Satya feeling conflicted—warmed, but at the same time deeply upset at the reminder of her interaction with Jamison at the loading dock and for some reason discomfited by the fact that it had been so easily noticed by the woman, and thus likely everyone else—but was interrupted abruptly as Reinhardt called out for Mercy’s attention once more.  The woman looked at her, smiled apologetically still with that gracious curve of her lips, and darted away back to Reinhardt’s side.

Jamison had been silent, more or less, since it all ended.  Silent, but with an intensity to him pointed wherever his eyes had wandered, which blended strangely with the blank expression and the unfocused nature of his gaze, as if anyone who accidentally wandered into view might be subjected to the full force of it.  Every so often she had caught him glancing at her as she spoke with Mercy, and each time their eyes met they caught for a moment before they both looked away.  She wasn’t sure what it meant and knew she would be thinking about it far too much on the ride back.

Winston and Kalsang stood off at one side and had kept a distance from the others as the reviewed what had happened in more detail, utilizing the time they had while all other arrangements were made.  The group had naturally divided itself in some subconscious decision, likely best to keep the junkers and the omnic some distance from one-another in order to reduce the stress of all parties involved, which allowed for some time for everyone to decompress.  Perhaps it was mere exhaustion, but the mood seemed to have calmed significantly despite the chaos they had just emerged from.

She had no doubt that Winston would be debriefing them all personally before a general meeting considering everything that had just occurred.  It seemed like it was too much to address in a general session, and some topics might be more sensitive than would be necessary to share with everyone in full detail.  Besides, the idea of having to discuss every moment of what had occurred made her deeply uncomfortable and strangely concerned, a tight feeling gripping her chest.  She felt like she remembered too much.  It felt revealing in a way she was uncertain about.

It had undoubtedly been one of the most challenging missions they had been on as a team to date, unconventional and complex.  And ultimately, to take the positive side of it, despite some fairly significant snags it had worked.

Two new vehicles came to escort them back to their temporary base and the dropship waiting there for them.  Jamison and Roadhog had been sent with Reinhardt in one vehicle while Satya, Mercy, Winston, and Kalsang were taken in the other.  She was relieved to not have to be in Jamison’s presence, though a part of her felt terrible for it.  She had asked quite a lot from him, more than she had realized at the time, and it was exhausting to think about and too much to process on her own, let alone with him sitting silently in the same vehicle.

Everyone was fatigued by the time they made it back to their temporary base where they were greeted with relieved enthusiasm by Lena, the other woman going so far as to dart forward and curl her arms gently around Satya’s back before withdrawing from the hug quickly with a beaming smile, her voice lowered to something a bit less excitable but genuine.  “Good to have you back, love!” 

A pleased laugh bubbled from Lena’s throat as she bounded away a step and did the same to Jamison, who straightened and went completely stiff and still under the assault, briefly losing his look of intensity in favor of something surprised and vaguely uncomfortable, holding his position until he was thankfully released and blinking in confusion for a moment afterwards.  Lena hugged Roadhog too, to the best of her abilities—moreso she threw her arms as far as she could around him.  The large man tipped his head to the side and paused for a moment before he lifted a large hand, bringing it down to thoroughly but gently ruffle the hair atop Lena’s head as she laughed, pulling away and running her fingers through the strands to try and fix some of the disarray.

Torbjörn seemed happy to see them as well, treating the three to a broad smile and a look of pride as he fell in step with them.  “How many was it?  Fifteen of them between the three of you?”  He lifted a fist to punch as high as he could at Roadhog’s side in an obvious gesture of comraderie and the large man laughed that wheezing, grating laugh of his, intoning a few words in his typical slow and labored way.  “Sixteen, and it was mostly me.”  Torbjörn laughed in return, heartily enough that Satya felt herself smiling faintly despite it all as she looked at the two of them before her eyes flitted to Jamison, who had simply continued walking, saying nothing.

The other two omnics were there, settled near the control area where Winston typically stood.  No doubt fully aware of the tension they inadvertently caused by their mere presence, Kalsang moved to be with them, greeting them silently.

Satya settled in at Mercy and Reinhardt’s side.  They were a comfort, the both of them warm and strong, and she rooted herself between their personalities with a deep sigh of relief that it was over.

Within a moment Winston stood up straight in the middle of the group to draw their attention and spoke out with his deep, rumbling voice, itself finally having lost some of its edge.

“Well aside from some… um.  Fairly significant setbacks, I would say this mission could still be qualified as a success.  It looks like the press will cooperate with the information the police are going to give them.  And I want to thank all of you for your involvement.  I’m glad we took so many precautions… I wasn’t expecting any resistance, especially of that magnitude, but I can’t help but feel responsible for what happened.”  His nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath, lifting a hand to push up his glasses and looking down at the tablet in his hands, more for somewhere to put his eyes rather than anything else.  The breath released as a deep sigh. 

“We clearly have some recon to do, but I think it would be best if we just head back to base and debrief in the morning.  Given the hour and what time we’ll be returning and what’s just happened I think our friends—”  He gestured to the omnics, who remained silent.  “—will stay at the base with us for a short time until we can guarantee their safe return to Tibet.”  He cleared his throat nervously with the proposal as he glanced over each face.  Jamison was nearly inexpressive, his eyes dull but gently narrowed as he stared back at Winston.  Roadhog was completely unreadable, which was nothing new.  And although Torbjörn’s lips pressed firmly together in disapproval he held his tongue.  Lena bounced on her toes and gave Winston a thumbs-up.

It seemed like it was good enough for the gorilla and he rolled his shoulders in a stretch to release some stress before nodded to himself briskly.  “Alright.  It’s going to be a long, crowded flight, so we might as well get going.”

Once they had all settled in the flight back was uneventful and nearly silent save for the occasional sounds of murmured conversation.  Some of them slept.  The idea was beyond Satya.  She was seated not opposite Jamison, but diagonal across the aircraft, enough so that she could look at him covertly provided he did not pay too much attention.  She took advantage of it and peered at him, her brow knitting together gently as she puzzled over the events of the night, her expression concerned as she noted the way he leaned forward with his weight against the safety harness, his elbows on his legs and his hands held lifelessly between them, the booted foot tapping against the floor, his jaw working constantly over some thought.  She recognized easily just how much it was upsetting her and pulled her eyes away to look resolutely at the floor instead and attempted to allow her mind to go blank.  It was an effort she made for the remainder of the flight with only mixed success.

 

* * *

 

Despite her exhaustion Satya hadn’t been able to sleep and she found herself padding through the empty hallways far too late in the night—or rather, early in the morning—after they’d returned.  She had showered, naturally, taking a moment to eye the bruises at her abdomen with dismay, and combed her hair carefully before slipping into her silk pajamas.  But when she had lain there staring at the ceiling for too long she had given up and stepped into the hallway without bothering to put on a uniform, staying in the comfortable silk instead, reasoning that it was unlikely anyone else was awake and frankly too tired to care.

Everything was quiet, lending it a dreamlike state that might otherwise have been somewhat comforting, but instead gave it all an air of unreality and loneliness.  There had been moments, more recently, when the base had begun to feel like a home.  But with the empty corridors and the lack of any friendly voices that feeling faded quickly and left her with a hollow sensation in her chest.

Her mind had fixated on quite a few things that kept her awake: the discussion with Kalsang, thoughts of the Vishkar Corporation, and of course the firefight.  It wasn’t so much the image of Jamison disappearing in the blast or emerging from the debris that had shaken her the most, although of course that was an image that came with its own problems, but it was mostly the way he had looked at her since the moment she intervened.  The way that made her feel so miserable, as if she’d done something terribly wrong.  It took her some time, but she unraveled the feeling slowly, following the threads to where they ended.  She was right to have held him back; it was important that they succeeded, and they would not have done so without him.  But perhaps it was the way she had done it, the words she had used, the use of his favor.  His hurt and anger were clear in hindsight and she knew some of it had to have come from the sense that she had thrown something important away even if she wasn’t entirely sure what it was, and that she had done so in a way that had made him do something he clearly loathed.  But he _had_ done it.  Despite so many opportunities and incentives not to he had kept his word, and that almost made it feel worse.

Her slippered feet took her eventually to the conference room.  The lights were dim and in the quiet she could hear the gentle hum of the machinery more easily, comforting in its steadiness.  As she stepped inside she gently brushed her fingers against the switch at the side of the door, bringing the lights up just enough to cast the room in a soft glow, and looked over the seats and the consoles.  It felt very different from the last time she had been there, less than twenty four hours ago.

For a moment she simply stood there as if lost, contemplating why she had even come, but her mind latched onto the thought as it drifted by and held it tight.  She had intended to re-read his dossier.  Maybe it wasn’t what she had originally started wandering the halls for, but her eyes flitted to the main console.  Now might be her best option, and if there was the slightest chance it would do anything to ease her mind she would take it.

Everyone on the team had a file, and everyone had access to it.  It was almost never anything terribly personal, just the basics of where someone was from, what they did, their areas of expertise, any significant past events or involvements…  Anything that might be relevant to them working best as a team.  She thought back on when Jamison had joined as she idly flicked the console to life, the light stitching words and images across the screen as she navigated unthinkingly to the open-access files, attempting to remember why she hadn’t paid his file more attention.  She did remember one thing: the file was long.  Longer than nearly everyone’s, with the exception of Reinhardt and Roadhog’s, and if she recalled correctly it was almost all incredibly negative.  Her brow creased gently at the thought as the pads of her fingers moved over the files on the display before they came to Jamison’s.  For a moment she wasn’t sure if she wanted to read it.

It had been strange that he had been recruited in the first place, he and Roadhog both.  Their records were extensive, and all of it was in the files; her lips curled back in a gentle wince as she let her eyes scan down the substantial list of charges.  She remembered those.  Maybe they had just drowned out everything else.  She breathed out a quiet sigh and skipped back to the beginning, to the absolute basics, and started there.

Name: Jamison Fawkes.  Age at recruitment: 25.  Country of origin: Australia.  Occupation: See below.  Expertise: Explosives engineering.  Affiliation: Junkers (Australian).

She wrinkled her nose upon reading it.  He was so _young_ , even more than she was—only by a few years, but the thought still struck her.  

She knew of the state of Australia after the omnic crisis, how the country had gifted the omnium and surrounding lands to the omnics as a gesture of peace and how it had all gone terribly wrong.  It wasn’t something she had seen personally or paid too much attention to aside from recognizing it for the dark mark on humanity that it was.  She had been with Vishkar… she had been too busy learning her craft, disciplining her mind and body.  The intensive study had left very little time for much else, and when occupied in such a way her mind didn’t always allow for other thoughts as it was.  She had been honing herself like a weapon, sharpened and made more efficient.  Curiosity outside of a narrow range of topics hadn’t had much place.

Her hands moved unthinkingly back to the menu, pulling articles on the repercussions of the omnic crisis as she leaned an elbow against the console with a quiet yawn, her long hair falling across the touchscreen before she carefully tucked it back behind an ear.  Russia, the United States, Korea… Australia.  There it was.  The entry on the devastation from the war, the section about the peace accords, the gifting of the omnium to the omnics.  The Australian Liberation Front.  She paused over that section, reading it idly, too exhausted to feel uneasy with the topic and instead just experiencing that same mild confusion.  The people had sabotaged the omnium in a fight to keep a home that was already devastated.  The result had been disastrous, irradiating and destroying much of the land and sending it into absolute chaos.  No matter if the destruction was unintentional, was it really worth it, all the effort in the first place?  She could vaguely recall what an unruly, lawless place it was, nothing but sun-parched dirt and scraps of metal with very little there worth salvaging.  She remembered wondering why on earth the people hadn’t simply left. 

The name ‘Mako Rutledge’ on the Australian Liberation Front’s roster caused her mind to trip and she blinked slowly over it, recalling Numbani.  Somehow in her mind the larger junker had simply become Roadhog, much like, she supposed, Jamison had simply become Junkrat, and it was still strange to think of him as anything different.  She paused for a moment before flicking back to Jamison’s file, swapping it out for Roadhog’s.

Name: Mako Rutledge.  Age at recruitment: 48.  Country of origin: Australia.  Occupation: See below.  Expertise: Weaponry engineering and combat.  Affiliation: Australian Liberation Front (formerly), Junkers (Australian).

She looked at his picture—a mugshot, the mask still on his face, curiously.  She supposed they hadn’t been incarcerated for long at any rate, given that their records indicated that they always seemed to escape, and idly wondered if their recruitment wasn’t just a way of attempting to keep them under control and minimize their damage.

Her fingers flicked the screen back to Jamison’s file and she rested her cheek against her fist, elbow still on the console, free hand curled gently against the display as she looked down toward it with a furrowed brow, Jamison’s mugshot looking back at her.  None of it seemed to be helping, but she supposed it was a good exercise to have tried, to have made an effort to know more about them.  Her eyes followed over his expression, the widows peak of his hair, the singed ends of it, his fingers with black nails curled around the identification card.  It seemed much more threatening somehow than what she knew of the reality.

The thought drifted to her that Jamison must have been very young at the time of the omnium explosion.  Had he been there, when it happened, closeby?  What was that kind of life like?  She felt like she could sympathize with some of it… Hyderabad had its own horrific elements but was likely very different than how Junkertown must have been.  What the people were subjected to.  She knew what poverty and deplorable conditions and crime were like, but there was also the irradiation, the lawlessness in the face of survival.

She realized very suddenly that it was four a.m. and she was nearly falling asleep over an image of Jamison on the briefing room display console.  She had kissed him out of curiosity, an experiment out of a need to understand some feeling she couldn’t quite define, but she blearily recognized that this was something else entirely and it was something that demanded immediate retreat.

Satya stood with a quiet sigh and brushed her hand across the console, clearing it.  She stayed there for a moment afterwards with tightly closed eyes and a light feeling in her chest before she breathed, slow and careful, and padded gently out of the room, her hand sweeping across the switch to dim the lights as she moved back into the corridor.  Perhaps a cup of tea would help quiet her mind.  It wasn’t as if she’d be missing that much more sleep by making it, anyway.

 

* * *

 

The kitchen wasn’t empty.  It only made sense, considering her luck, that it wouldn’t be.

She could hear the small sounds down the hallway above her own quiet steps, the gentle clink of glass and metal, the familiar sound of water heating in a tea kettle, and assumed someone else had had a similar idea, and a similar difficulty sleeping.  A sweet, syrupy smell reached her as she slowed her steps.  She knew that Lena, Mercy, Reinhardt, and Winston drank tea fairly regularly.  She also knew that none of them were typically awake at four in the morning making it, although in fairness it had not been a typical day.  She knew one person who seemed to keep odd hours, at least, but tea didn’t seem like the kind of beverage he would enjoy.  But there came a point where curiosity demanded investigation, and so she simply turned her feet towards caution.  She moved quietly to the door and leaned in just slightly in an attempt to catch a view of whoever was inside without alerting them to her presence, and she shouldn’t have been surprised at who it was.

Jamison had a spoon in his mouth, the silver handle sticking out from the corner of his lips at a high angle.  His shorts were slung dangerously low on his hips as if he’d barely bothered to even put them on—something she realized when she noticed that the belt was only half-buckled—and the canteen usually slung around his waist was sitting on the counter next to the stove, leaving the view of his torso completely unobstructed.  He was making tea of a certain sort, she realized… a carton of milk sat on the counter next to jars of sugar and a bowl filled with something round, small and black.  His prosthetic hand was idly stirring something in a pot next to the kettle with a wooden spoon while the other rested on the sharp bones of his hip, his tongue clearly rotating the metal spoon over in his mouth lazily as he cooked. 

He looked exhausted and he was still dirty, though not nearly so much as when he’d emerged from the rubble, suggesting Mercy had managed to get himself to clean the worst parts up.  The areas where he’d been cut the worst were clean, at least, though his hair held the bulk of it as it seemed to typically do.

The thought occurred to her that she should just go; she was fairly certain she hadn’t been noticed yet and she had doubts that he would want to see her, especially so soon.  A crease developed on her brow and she made the mistake of letting her eyes drop thoughtfully, her hands curled around the doorframe, a look of discomfort and indecision on her face.

The sound of stirring came to a gradual stop and when her eyes abruptly refocused he was looking at her sidelong, the spoon in his mouth turning over in a way that seemed almost deliberately slow, teeth parted to the point where she could see his tongue.  It didn’t seem like a good expression, it seemed almost predatory, and a part of her jumped internally with the instinct to simply run.  Of course, it wasn’t an option anymore, and she supposed she would have to live with her mistakes.

He didn’t turn or acknowledge her aside from the steady look that only eventually pulled back to whatever he was cooking, absolutely silent in a way that she felt would absolve her of blame if she chose to leave.  As if he were giving the opportunity to run, actually, as if he would just forget she had ever been there.  Whether or not it was true the idea itself was strangely insulting and she cleared her throat gently as she abandoned the safety of the doorframe, stepping into the doorway but not forward into the space of the kitchen.

“Good… morning.”  Her voice was quieter than she had wanted it to be, and more doubtful, but at least the earliness of the hour did allow for some ambiguity.  His teeth clinked once or twice against the spoon in his mouth before he apparently recalled that it wasn’t some weaker material like his popsicle sticks and stopped, merely letting it ride on his tongue as he answered with something of a deeper drawl than usual, whether the effect of fatigue or irritation she couldn’t tell.

“G’day.”

He didn’t offer anything else and she folded her hands gently in front of herself, her toes wanting to propel her forward and her weight shifting as a result, her neck craning to indicate her attention to what he was doing.  “… I was hoping to make tea.”

He did look at her directly then, a withering thing with arched eyebrows, and he was definitely still upset, clearly so and she should have guessed.  It was still so fresh and she shouldn’t have come here and she shouldn’t have said what she just said.

“I’ll be out of your way in a tick.”

“No!  That’s not what I—”  Frustrated, she cut herself off and looked to the side with a shake of her head, calming her breathing, and tried again.  “I was only wondering what you were making.”

He eyed her slowly before answering, the spoon still riding his tongue but more carefully now, something like suspicion and distrust on his features.  But he turned his attention to the pot he was stirring and lifted the spoon out of it, tapping it on the side to rid it of the excess syrup before setting it to the side.  “Boba tea.  ‘s what I put in this.”  His freed hand grabbed the canteen lazily from the counter and gave the empty thing a shake as he removed the metal spoon from his mouth and set it on the counter, raising an eyebrow at her with the explanation.

She blinked in return with a mystified voice, surprised both at herself and the new information.  “… I always just assumed it was alcohol.” 

 

The snort was immediate, as if he knew it was coming.  “Alcohol?  Nah, I don’t touch the stuff.”  He immediately laughed, a wheezing, subdued thing that sounded tired before expertly pouring the ingredients one by one into the canteen, popping the lid on and giving it a shake.  His head tipped to the side as he grinned to himself, lopsidedly.  “Well, that ain’t true at all, but it’s more amusin’ to say.”  Once satisfied it was mixed he flipped the cap back open and brought the canteen to his mouth, taking a drink with no change in his expression before closing it again.  “Been a long day.  Figured I could use a pick-me-up.” 

The look he gave her was pointed and thoughtful, though not in a way she felt reflected positively on her, and there was a moment where his jaw worked over a thought where she thought he might offer her some but that moment did not come.  Instead he rolled a careless shrug over his shoulders and looked to the side with gently gritted teeth, the canteen bobbing in his hand with the gesture.

“At any rate, s’pose I ought to go hit the sack for a bit, let you get on with it.  The ape likely wants an early morning.”  He was already moving towards the door as he said it and she was forced to back up to get out of his way.  He hadn’t looked at her at all as he approached and instead kept this eyes above her head with that same closed-off expression as he moved by with that awkward gait.

She didn’t have any words she could say but the sense of desperation growing in her was too big to allow her to not do anything and as he passed she did the only thing she could think of to keep him there, to explain somehow, to not end the day like this.  She had seen Lena do it easily enough, she had experienced it, it seemed kind and innocuous enough.  It seemed like the best possible option when she couldn’t find he words to say.  She darted after him perhaps a bit too quickly and wrapped her arms around his torso from behind, the silk sleeves of her pajamas sliding up her forearms as she pressed tight against his lanky form with a force that she wanted him to _understand_.

The physical restraint made him stop instantly and she could feel his muscles go taut, his arms raising in what she imagined was discomfort and surprise, imagined it was approximately the same reaction he had had when Lena had done it even if it wasn’t quite the same, but she closed her eyes, gritted her teeth as she pressed her cheek against his back, did her best to focus on her thoughts rather than his warm, smooth skin and the tension he held under her fingertips.

“I _am_ sorry.”

He didn’t move, didn’t say anything, and she had no way of knowing what his features showed but held stubbornly to the idea that it couldn’t be anything worse than everything else she had seen in the past eight hours or so.  She could feel his heartbeat under her palms even where they rested at his ribs and it quickened in a way that suggested panic to her.  She would have to let him go, but it felt like it wasn’t enough yet and closed her eyes more tightly, trying to focus.  On her words.  On the feel of his skin under hers.  Frustrated with herself for even considering the latter.

“It was too much for me to ask of you.  I didn’t realize...”  It was all she had and she felt both her concentration and her resolve flagging, her grip already weakening when he moved.  She wasn’t sure if he was saving her or himself as he pulled away.

He looked a bit shaken as he lowered his arms and glanced over his shoulder at her, that same confusion plaguing him though more intense and mixed with an odd sort of suspicion or disbelief, but whatever it was it certainly held a significant amount of mistrust.  She felt vulnerable but shoved the feeling stubbornly away and looked back at him directly, almost like a challenge, and his eyes darted over her quickly—her slippers, her pajamas, her hair, the hands balled into loose fists and the expression on her face—before he blinked and stood up a bit more straight, very suddenly collected once again.  He turned his attention away and looked at the canteen in his hand as if it were a topic they’d already been discussing, flipping the lid open and taking another drink.  His voice was dry and unwelcoming, though she thought significantly less than before, and hoped that wasn’t simply wishful thinking.

“Not my best batch.  Maybe you can try the next.”

He popped the lid aggressively back onto the canteen and slid it around his waist, already moving with no intention of looking back or waiting for a response.  She watched him move down the hallway, not sure how she felt.  But she had done something that felt substantial, the first since she had kissed him and she had made the resolution to speak to him.  And despite how frightening it was and how vulnerable it made her feel it had removed some small amount of the weight on her chest and made her dread the next day a little bit less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is gonna get long but...
> 
> I feel like Roadhog gets affection and general kindness better because I think at some point he had something verging on normalcy. Even with the omnic crisis there had to have been times where he had friends or a family and a life where those things were just there and present and Jamison has never had that it seems like which goes a long way imo to explain why he behaves the way he does. From the timeline it looks like since he was very young he lived in Junkertown which seems like it was sort of a kill or be killed environment until the point where resources were the most important thing in life and who knows how strong friendships could be there, you know? And the fact that after he found whatever his great treasure is he had to HIRE someone to help him like… did he ever have friends who would have, did his friends go after him, were his friends killed or something? So who would ever show him kindness really or why would he expect it? And it’d be new and weird and kind of scary and I made myself sad about a video game character again.
> 
> Also I now know how to make boba tea


	17. Chapter 17

There hadn’t been much to the briefing aside from a short recap and a few statements of congratulations and appreciation—with quite a few qualifiers—that the mission had, at least, worked.  They’d received news that law enforcement and a couple of Overwatch contacts were working on gathering as much information as they could on whoever the group was that was involved in the attack and trying to identify the individuals involved with some success.  And the media did indeed report it as a simple explosion due to one unforeseen failure or another and thus far public opinion seemed to more or less fall in line.  All things considered it really had gone about as best as it possibly could have.  They didn’t address the near-mutiny.  That was something to be done on a more personal basis, if at all—the situation had worked itself out and there didn’t seem to be much wisdom in revisiting it.

Their individual meetings with Winston had also gone about as well as could have been expected as well.  Winston had already met and discussed with the omnics, which left Satya, Jamison, and Roadhog’s interviews.  The Junkers were excused for a short while in the morning as Mercy gave them a final check, but Satya wasn’t so lucky.  It made her uneasy for some reason, meeting with Winston to talk about the incident.  She respected the gorilla to a high degree and was friendly with him, but wouldn’t necessarily consider him a friend.  And there was something that felt very personal about what had happened, about what she had witnessed, as if it were something that she didn’t have the right to share, and strangely she was worried about what Jamison might think about how she expressed herself even though she thought it reflected on both of the Junkers very positively.  At any rate, she told Winston what she knew and included her commendation for the two Junkers and thought she may have seen him add it to their files.

Jamison’s interview wasn’t necessarily uncooperative, but it was reticent and brief, with a lot of prompting from Winston and defensive replies and acknowledgments from Jamison.  The session ended early but agreeably enough.  Roadhog’s was even briefer, though maybe the slightest bit more polite.  Most of it was one or two word responses with the occasional wheezing laugh as he enjoyed Winston’s comments on the firefight, which seemed to be his particularly favorite moment of the whole thing.

She couldn’t be sure, but word may have been spread individually to each member despite Satya’s strange discomfort with it that the Junkers had been given an offer to leave Overwatch and had refused it in a way that was fairly decisive.  Killing fifteen people sent a fairly clear signal to both parties.  But it also could, she supposed, simply be because it was such a harrowing experience in the first place.  Such a thing would naturally create a bond, wouldn’t it?  Maybe they weren’t told about it.  Maybe the response didn’t need some kind of proof of the Junkers’ loyalty.  They had put themselves at great risk against their own desires regardless. 

Regardless of exactly what had happened it had resulted an incredibly positive environment around the base with the entire team showing a great deal of appreciation.  It was to the point where she suddenly realized how unbalanced it had previously been.  She couldn’t see it before, but it seemed like the Junkers had been kept at a greater distance from the other team members, including herself.  And true, they’d been there a shorter time than the rest of them, but it had still been long enough to create some stronger bonds, she’d thought.  It was a little upsetting to think about once it became clear to her that she was also one of the guilty parties.  Certainly they were a little… rough.  She hadn’t given them as much of a chance as she had the others.  She was in good company, but that didn’t make it any better.

At any rate, the general mood had changed over the next couple of days or so despite the tension and avoidance between herself and Jamison, and it seemed that, while Roadhog was having no trouble with the transition, Jamison had become largely uncomfortable and often seemed confused.  Mercy had made them cookies, specifically shaped and decorated for them: mines for Jamison and, strangely, stuffed animals for Roadhog with soft pastel icing.  The large Junker seemed to like them.  Jamison had issued a somewhat stuttering and awkward ‘ta’ and eaten a few as carefully as if they were actual edible mines, though he had eventually developed a lopsided smile at the taste.  The baffled crease on his brow never left.

Lena had offered him a look at one of her pulse bombs despite the fact that she had rejected every previous attempt when he had been asking incessantly ever since he first saw it in action.  While his excitement had been obvious given how wide his eyes had gotten and the nervous energy that left him unable to keep quite still, twitching a bit as she showed him the basics of it, once he managed to catch his breath he had chanced a sidelong look at her with one eye narrowed in gentle suspicion.  It was too good for him to resist though, entirely new tech to what he had seen.  When she had let him handle it (a bit nervously) every other sense of doubt disappeared and when she left the training ground he had stayed behind, excitedly arranging his own mines with great care and precision against a series of pillars facing inwards, farther away from one-another than was typical, setting the wires and then standing back as he tossed a handful of sand between them and pressed the detonator, attempting to create some kind of vortex.  It had set his mind racing and kept him busy for nearly an entire day.

Reinhardt had made a point of showing both of the Junkers his rocket hammer, which Roadhog took a particular interest in.  Torbjörn took some time off to just talk to Jamison, although most of it was about omnics, which actually probably hadn’t helped the general situation much.  Roadhog, oddly, opted out of that conversation.  Satya simply stayed away; she had things to do on her own and others to think about.  It wasn’t as though Jamison had been hostile, but everything had felt so strange and awkward and imbalanced, and even if a grudge wasn’t there it didn’t seem as though he was very eager to talk.  It seemed like the best option for the time being.  Some part of her thought that having met him in the kitchen had been far too much far too soon, and maybe it would be best to avoid a repeat of it.

So she had kept to herself, except for her interactions with the rest of the team, of which had been plenty as well.  Chats with Lena over polishing their nails, discussions of simple medical aid with Mercy which led to talk of procedures well beyond Satya’s ability to understand, discussions with Reinhardt about his past and about how things had been before the omnic war, well before she was born.  It was interesting to learn so much about all of them, both by asking about their histories and simply by interacting with them.  It made her feel a bit braver, a bit easier to talk with them, and they were all so forgiving when she misspoke.  Torbjorn she hadn’t avoided, but had been more careful with, not quite sure how to handle him yet considering his own dislike of omnics and the fact that the three were still at the base… and that the mission had proceeded primarily because of her.  But there was no dislike there.  There were simply too many factors involved for her to feel comfortable pursuing conversations with him.

Winston was busy, to the point where it concerned her.  She knew he was occupied pulling strings and gathering information and she knew he did have the support of the rest of the team, or most of it anyway, but she still felt as though he deserved more appreciation for his efforts.  It had to be difficult wrangling together so many disparate personalities and skillsets, all with the responsibility on his shoulders for each mission, for succeeding, or failing, for protecting everyone, for respecting the property and desires of those they were defending… the more she thought about it the more overwhelming it seemed.  She couldn’t think of much to do for him aside from follow orders.  She knew so little about what he liked, aside from peanut butter, but she decided most everyone liked sweets of one kind or another so she would give one a try: on a particularly late night she found him still at his console and brought him a sweet dessert, some gulab jamun, and he took it with a bright smile she hadn’t seen on him before, innocently appreciative and genuinely surprised; a look much like Lena’s, only less excitable.  It had been an incredibly gratifying experience, and she found some words in their transaction, folding her hands gently in front of herself.

“If you should need anything, Winston, please just let me know.”

 

* * *

 

Jamison was uncharacteristically quiet, holed up in the workshop with Roadhog, a place that had become less of a workspace in some ways and more of a hideaway from the rest of the base when he needed it.  Which seemed like more and more over the past couple of days, given the rest of the team's behavior.  It was overwhelming, the attention, and if he were being frank it freaked him out a little bit.  Satya, also, was a difficult presence for him to deal with… or lack thereof, he supposed.  He hadn’t seen her much since that night after the mission, in the kitchen, when she’d held onto him like she wasn’t gonna let him go.  It was sort of strange not talking to her.  Felt off somehow, and he knew he probably should but every time he thought about it his lips pressed tightly together and his brow furrowed and he thought about how angry he’d been.  How angry he had every right to be, probably.  He still hated omnics at any rate and he hated the idea of helping them, that much he was sure of.  But with a few days to distance himself, either mull it over or avoid it when he wanted to, the anger had faded off to something that was just the occasional hard edge.  But besides, he couldn’t hardly ever find her anyway, not anywhere he could talk to her at any rate. 

The only one he thought he felt comfortable with at the moment was Roadhog.  It was no wonder they had stationed themselves up in the workshop together.

Roadhog was actually working while Jamison was leaning back in a chair with his foot on his workbench, his right leg bent at the knee and his peg leg resting on the left ankle of his boot.  He was chewing on a pen thoughtfully, gently, holding a cup with a straw in it in his right hand, and staring off blankly into space.  His eyes eventually came into focus and he took the pen away from his mouth, glancing at the tooth marks before looking at the plans he had scrawled together.  It was for some kind of vortex bomb.  He hadn’t figured out the physics yet, wasn’t even sure it was possible with his methods and his kinds of bombs, but was excited to try.  The pen was placed carefully next to the plans, requiring him to sit up for a moment to reach.  He settled back down in the chair with a slump, leaning back in it a bit and pressing a quiet sigh out through his nose.

“Oi, Roadie?”

He didn’t wait long enough for a response from the larger Junker before going on, his voice pitching up in a deeply confused and uncertain arc that nearly strained it.  “D’ya think people are bein’ nicer to us?”

Jamison looked down at the cup of tea and the straw “with the loops in ‘em” that he had asked for from requisitions and, strangely, been granted by Winston.  Then there was the claw machine that had been added to the rec room, ostensibly for Roadhog but still at Jamison’s request—which had sort of been a joke in the first place—both of them having been acquired _very_ quickly, though he supposed a supply run had been scheduled already anyway.  He swished the tapioca balls around in the bottom of his cup before curling his lips around the straw and slurping on what was rest of the tea, watching the liquid travel up the twists and turns thoughtfully.

Roadhog lifted his shoulders in a brisk shrug and grunted.  “Hadn’t noticed.”

Jamison had raised his eyes to the other Junker, his brow knitted in that same uncertainty and concern, looking genuinely distressed.  The answer was deeply unsatisfying and despite himself he narrowed his eyes, teeth wrapping around the end of the straw in agitation before stopping, reminding himself not to chew on it.  The look he gave Roadhog was a strange mix of distrust and open pleading.

“Aw c’mon mate, don’t pull me leg on this one.  You don’t think it’s been weird?”

Roadhog made a low sound that was somehow both thoughtful and irritated as he looked up from his work to stare at the other Junker pointedly.  “They weren’t nice before?”

Jamison took the words into account and lowered his eyes to the floor, his teeth biting into his lower lip instead.  A second passed before he answered, voice lowered to something closer to a mumble.

“Wouldn’t go as far as _that_ I guess.  But all of ‘em have been doin’ all kinds of things, like, for us, specific.  Seems like, anyway.”

Roadhog snorted and shook his head as he returned to his work, lowering his head over the gun he was working on, hunched over it to make delicate adjustments with large fingers.  “Nah.  It’s normal.”

“Mm.”  It wasn’t a sound of agreement, but it was the sound of Jamison letting the topic drop for the time being and he went back to staring at the wall across form himself before another thought occurred to him that he apparently couldn’t keep in.  “Makes me uncomfortable is all.  Has me nerves on end.”  A moment passed and he eyed Roadhog carefully, clearly expecting a reply, but when none came he sucked in a breath and released it as an exaggerated sigh.  When _that_ elicited no response he took another deep breath and channeled it all into his voice.  “Why d’ya think they’re doin’ it?”

Roadhog went still.  His hands moved away from the gun they were working so carefully on and he raised his head again and sat straight, slowly, irritably, and with a look of finality, realizing he wasn’t going to get the work done he had wanted to and the only option was to put an end to the distraction one way or another.  His voice came out as a low growl, but the aggression dissipated at the end of the question as if it were attempting to be diplomatic.  “Why do you think I put up with _you_?”

Jamison frowned at him with his head tipped to the side as if it would help him find the angle on an answer and sucked on the straw for a second as he looked at Roadhog, the crease back on his forehead.  There was no liquid left in the cup so the straw instead attached itself to a tapioca ball and the airflow stopped, stuck.  Jamison’s lips let it go as his eyes flicked over the other man in perplexity and a bit of apprehension as if worried what might happen if he got the answer wrong.  “…’cause I pay ya?”

The rumbling sound that came from behind the mask sounded like it was fueled by frustration, but even though Jamison didn’t typically have any trouble discerning the subtleties of Roadhog’s vocalizations this one seemed different or new, or maybe his mind was just a little bit elsewhere and he was finding it difficult to translate.  Luckily Roadhog followed it with an annoyed grunt as his hands curled around the handle of his gun, trying to will himself back into working on it.  A moment passed in which his form remained bent, the pose somehow looking thoughtful, but eventually he shrugged, an awkward and half-formed thing that came with a halfhearted tip of his head to the side in a nod of partial agreement.  He made a low sound in his throat that sounded as if it was meant to be words, reduced to a mumble made completely incomprehensible by the mask.  He went back to the weapon, looking at it with considerable distraction.

Jamison eyed him with concern for a moment before giving up on the riddle in favor of sucking on the straw once more, the loud sound filling the workspace as Roadhog did his best to keep his patience.  The more Jamison did it the more he could see the change in the angle of Roadhog’s shoulders, the agitation, and he paused once just long enough to watch the larger Junker’s posture soothe before sucking loudly on the straw once again, stopping abruptly with a light giggle as Roadhog’s figure hunched and his hand moved to threateningly pull around the grip of his gun.  Jamison grinned around the straw and managed to cut off the tail end of another, louder giggle with significant effort.  “Alright, alright mate, I’m done.”

The growl that welled up from Roadhog was both warning and acknowledgment, and he shoved the gun down hard against the workbench with the clear intent of actually making some progress while Jamison chattered on. 

“At any rate, _I’ve_ seen it.  Maybe it’s just me they’re being nice to.”  His nostrils flared as he took in a breath and focused hard, attempting to form his features into something vaguely heroic and only managing to look like he was concentrating too hard before giving up and lifting his chin, opting for something self-satisfied instead as he grinned around the words, his voice lilting over them playfully with abundant self-assurance, whether real or imagined, entirely convincing.

“Must just be my glowing personality and prowess.”  He leaned farther back against the chair and tipped the cup back to take some of the tapioca into his mouth, chewing on them idly as he went on, still grinning to himself _about_ himself, the necessity of Roadhog’s presence being debatable.  “Nice to see them finally recognizing my genius.  Be nice if _everyone_ here showed some appreciation.  Now if they’d just listen to me about the bots—”

The abrupt snort from Roadhog was loud, louder than it had any right to be and disruptive and his voice followed after at the same volume, forceful and low in a way Jamison had rarely heard.  The kind he usually only heard when things were about to get dangerous, and it made him stop and blink, eyes wide and perplexed. 

“ _I_ think you’re being an idiot.”

It wasn’t the words themselves, really.  Roadhog had called him an idiot plenty of times, more than he could count actually, but the tone was strange and serious and worst of all accusatory in a very specific kind of way.

Jamison was mid-tapioca ball ingestion and he nearly choked, coughing quietly as he sat up straight and attempted to deal with a very sudden influx of confusion.  Some part of him assumed he’d just read the tone wrong and as he coughed he leaned forward, curling his lips in a lopsided smile as he hit his hand against his chest to dislodge anything that might be in his windpipe, the uneven breathing interrupting his speech and denial painting it overly optimistic.  “That somethin’ new, Hog?”

“Yeah.”  The word hung there for a minute, heavy in the air as Roadhog’s hand strained against the metal of the gun still held on the worktable, still benign, simply something for him to grip onto.  “I’d say it’s somethin’ new even for you.”

Jamison’s smile dissipated slowly, replaced by uncertainty and a hurt that he tried to hide.  It floored him, really, and he was absolutely silent as he sat up a bit more straight as his mind reviewed what Roadhog had said, the sounds he had made, the tone of his voice, and Jamison was suddenly attempting to deal with a surge of complex and disparate emotions that left him quiet for a moment before it pitched his voice towards something high and indignant and clearly caught completely off guard.  “Christ, Hog.  Whad’ya mean?”

“This shit you’re pulling.” 

Jamison’s expression read mostly as confusion but the hurt there deepened and buried further underneath it was a strange sort of fear.  There was something in the way Roadhog was talking that Jamison hadn’t really seen, not pointed towards him at least, and it took him aback, sent him scrambling a little bit to get his feet on the floor both metaphorically and literally.  His eyes narrowed as he attempted to give the larger Junker a sullen look, a deep one, but it had something else mixed in as if he wasn’t happy about doing it.  As if he were doing it out of some kind of duty, and his voice came out as pleading edging close to the tone of a whine, almost stuttering over itself.

“The omnics?  But Hog, you know what they did.  Y’know what they’re like—”

“Pick your battles, Fawkes.”  The deep voice growled, slow and deliberate but enough to cut the lanky Junker off mid-sentence and with enough force to keep him quiet.  He grunted, and for the first time Jamison heard what he sounded like when he was genuinely angry.  Not like in a fight, he’d heard that plenty of times.  This felt like something personal, and not in the way it usually was, the kind where there was annoyance mixed in.  This seemed like genuine, pure anger.  He’d hit something he realized, something that was hidden there, a history he didn’t know about fueling the tone and he blinked in surprise as Roadhog went on.  “Not the bots.  Forget the bots.  Omnics are one thing.  Whatever your problems are they aren’t with her.”

Jamison was speechless for a second but his expression fell and he went hostile again, trying hard to make his features look closed off but failing just as hard, resulting in the same look as before before—hurt but with a rapidly deepening sense of uncertainty and, underneath it, something closer to fear. 

“I dunno what you’re talkin’ about, mate.”  It was a terrible lie, and he did terribly at it.

“You _told_ me.”  The large man said it like a death sentence and Jamison’s eyes flicked from Roadhog to the floor and back, eyes wide but drawn.  And despite all of it, the threat in his voice and the uncertainty on Jamison’s face, above all he looked perplexed and maybe even slightly betrayed as Roadhog went on.

“Three days ago.  Said Satya apologized.”  Her name sounded strange coming from behind Roadhog’s mask but Jamison was too surprised to wrap his head around it, around any of it.  A worried sort of doubt had begun creeping in.  He’d thought that Roadhog was on his side, had understood it and felt the same way.  He thought the whole thing with the omnics… well.  He _had_ thought they were on the same side, anyway.  And if they weren’t what exactly was he supposed to think?  His voice was quieter yet a bit panicked and no less bewildered than before, drifting away towards being completely lost.

“Yeah but mate—”

“Said she made a mistake asking you to use that favor.”

Jamison blinked again as if under attack and his eyes flicked from side to side for help but he didn’t find any.  After all, it wasn’t as if it wasn’t the truth.  He just… well.  It all seemed a lot more confusing all of a sudden.  He stammered the words before getting them out quite right.  “Y-yeah, alright, but—”

Roadhog stood more quickly than he had any right to and lumbered towards him with a sense of purpose he rarely saw and Jamison made a sound something like a yelp and stood up, the cup rattling to a stand on the workshop table as he tried to back away.  He was in an unfortunate corner, but had already gotten a late start from the pure surprise of it, and as the larger Junker snagged him by the back of his neck Jamison made a stressed choking sound and went still, eyes wide and cringing as the larger man started pushing him towards the door in heavy, resolute steps.

“Wait, Hog, hang on!  Look mate, I dunno what I said but—”

The door hissed open and Jamison was shoved unceremoniously out into the corridor, barely catching his balance as he turned to look through the closing glass at Roadhog in shock.  Speechless.  He stood there for a moment attempting to catch his breath as Roadhog stood unmoving like a mountain on the other side, staring back at him from behind the mask, and it was unnerving enough that Jamison ran his hand back through his hair in a shaky motion meant to calm himself, unruffle things somehow, but Roadhog was still there.  And he was still terrifying in just how still he could be.  Jamison tried to pick a direction to leave in, the nervousness making him pace in a circle before he chose one, shaken and bewildered in a way he hadn’t felt in quite a while. 

He hadn’t made it far before he turned to look over his shoulder just to see.  Roadhog was already gone, out of sight and back into the workshop, likely back to his work.  His feet paused and he began another quick circle as they turned back towards the workshop with the ill-advised thought process that he might go back and try to figure out what the hell had just happened but thankfully thought better of it, did another strange pace, and continued down the hallway blindly, not even fully aware of where he was going.

 

* * *

 

Jamison spent some time at the practice range but hadn’t had many explosives in his quarters and couldn’t exactly go back to the workshop to get more.  And besides, his heart wasn’t in it.  He couldn’t shake his thoughts with cherry bombs or grenades so he ended up in the recreation room at the claw machine, numbly pressing ‘start’, moving the claw, hitting the button, and watching the thing ineffectually fall onto and the slide quietly off of each prize it touched.  The pleasant music it played ended with the sting of failure each time and it was infuriating.  It had all ended with him punching at the thick, clear plastic with a strained and irritated grunt before pulling his left hand away and shaking it, realizing too late how hard to stuff was and cursing to himself under his breath.  He tried to use the pool table but it wasn’t much good with one person and he wasn’t much good anyway.  Something as simple as lining up a shot felt like too much to try to focus on. 

Eventually he ended up on the couch, splayed across it as he tended to do, upside-down with his legs tossed over the back of it and his head hanging over the front end so that he could get a better view of the floor from a different perspective.  His arms were slumped downwards, ‘above’ his head, his hands sitting limp against the floor just within his line of sight.  There had been nothing in the room to keep him occupied, nothing but magazines and books and pinball and the like, and he couldn’t go back to the workshop, not for who knew how long, until Roadhog decided he was done with it.  He could go to the kitchen maybe, tear some things up there.  Nothing sounded appealing and while it made him feel uneasy for once it didn’t feel like his skin was crawling from the inactivity; the sensation was there but manageable.  There was something else.  It just felt… bad.  Terrible, actually.  It felt like something that had been building for the past three days and made a home in his chest, weighing him down.

So he stared forward blankly, his vision pointed under the feet of the pool table towards the door and prolonged his thoughts for as long as he could, but his mind kept going back to what Roadhog had said in the workshop.  And the past few days where it felt like there was that wall there every time he and Satya had been in the same room.  And the way she had grabbed him from behind in a way that demanded that he listen, even if he hadn’t wanted to.  He couldn’t figure why she had been awake so late, anyway.  Any reasonable person would’ve been in bed.  Of course, for the life of him he couldn’t have gone to sleep either.  Everything about the day prior to it had felt wrong and he winced, remembering the feeling of her palm on his chest and the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d looked at her the whole time after that, really. 

He was angry yeah, angry enough to act stupid in the firefight, angry enough to enjoy it more than maybe he should have and angry enough to get him in a spot he probably shouldn’t have survived.  That was a bad habit.  That was something he might need to work on.

But she’d tugged him out from between the rubble so _gentle_ , and he was still in the fight and ready to take on anything and he’d still looked at her that way even when she closed up his cuts.

There was a horrible feeling and that’d settled firmly in his gut, made him feel a little bit sick actually.  Roadie _hated_ omnics and even _he_ thought he wasn’t behaving right.   Maybe Roadie was right. 

The thought occurred to him that maybe she couldn’t sleep because it felt wrong to her too, whatever that might’ve meant.  He would’ve assumed she’d be mad at him after everything leading up to the firefight but if she were mad at him she wouldn’t have apologized.  Despite how obvious it seemed like it should be his mind kept drowning it in doubt and paranoia and he shook his head, giving up on it despite the fact that whatever he was looking for was right there and the thoughts he was trying to avoid weren’t leaving anytime soon.

There were a few very simple facts that he knew, without any doubts and without any escape: she had kissed him, he didn’t know why, but he liked it, and it was becoming increasingly clear regardless of anything else that he liked _her_.  Probably more than he should.  Definitely more than he should?  And not just because she had kissed him and not just because of all the other things that had happened and not just because she was beautiful.  It was different.  Just like when they were in Egypt and she was on top of him and she smiled and it was like it mattered.

And yeah, maybe now that Hog had mentioned it he was angrier at other things than he was at her.  He had owed her a favor after all, and he’d told her it was a big one, almost anything.  He guessed that still fit the profile.

His chest rose and fell in a helpless sigh that strained his back in his awkward position and he grunted as he considered getting up and doing something, anything.  He was coming up short for ideas when a pair of shoes appeared in the rec room doorway, visible from under the feet of the pool table.  He didn’t recognize them at first.  He thought they might be Mercy’s, the backs of them high and the front of them pointed and narrow but there was a line of silver around the edges and highlights of cream and blue.

It was Satya.

Everything Roadhog had said to him curled tight around his bones and made him feel heavier.  He felt caught somehow by the fact that he’d been thinking about her, immediately and guiltily lifting his legs and swinging his feet to the side in a scramble to get himself upright and out of a position that for some reason his mind helpfully informed it was probably not a presentable position to be in.  His hips bounced off of the couch and forward, still mostly out of sight due to the obstruction of the pool table and he tumbled lightly to the floor with a quiet ‘ouf’ before immediately getting to his feet and standing up far too quickly, attempting to smooth out hair that he knew must be wild and unkempt both from the effort and from the upside-down position he’d been in.  She was clearly shocked to see him, like she hadn’t noticed he was there, and something in her posture made it look like she intended to leave but she stayed instead, long enough.  Long enough to ask him a question he didn’t expect. 

“Are… you alright?”

His hands settled on his hips, his breathing a little irregular from the surprise of seeing her and the endeavor of getting to his feet.  There was a pressure there and it felt high, far too much, maybe because they hadn’t really spoken since everything and it felt like there was more to lose.  It made him trip over himself and set an awkward feeling in his stomach.

“Yeah.  Y’know.  Roadie and I got in a bit of a blue.  Nothin’ new.”  The words were followed up with a weak little laugh, the characteristic giggle lilting upwards determinedly but awkward.

She looked at him with a gentle crease on her brow that suggested a lack of understanding and her body was still turned, angled only partially towards him in a way that suggested she wasn’t entirely in the conversation still, a book curled under the palm of her hand.  His eyes flitted from all of it before it returned to her face and he uttered a quiet. ‘oh’ before gathering himself and going on.  “A bit of a, um… bit of a fight.  Tiff?  A little one.”

The look she gave him was cautious but she lifted her chin with a gentle ‘ah’ of understanding, mostly just a breath with some faint sound applied, and stood there silently in that same pose, her eyes drifting off and to the side.  He wasn’t sure if she was attempting to come up with something to say or wasn’t bothering, and it set his nerves on fire with urgency, like he was burning his chance somehow.  The sound that escaped his throat was a strained, frustrated one and it showed on his face in an unfortunate kind of way that she definitely noticed.

“… I could go if you’d like.”

 

His eyes widened and he gritted his teeth over it, a deep furrow on his brow.  That wasn’t good.  He’d sent entirely the wrong message, and he bit his lip as he looked at her, his eyes flitting over her features and searching them as quickly as he could for the right answer to the riddle, for the key to keep her from leaving.  To do it in a way that didn’t involve bringing anything up, any of it, not the omnics or the firefight or the last three days of nothing but glancing at each other when they had the misfortune of seeing each other in the corridors.  But he couldn’t find it and he took a long, slow breath, holding it in for a moment before his teeth finally released his lower lip to let him talk. 

“Look.  I been talkin’ to Roadie… or Roadie’s been talkin’ at me anyway, an’ he had some things to say.  Wasn’t too nice about it.”

She was still looking at him and he could have sworn it was more open, more puzzled but still more engaged, and she had shifted one of her feet gently closer, squaring her body across from his own and he took a heartened breath with it, looking her in the eyes as he went on, unable to keep her gaze for long but returning to it as much as he could.

“The point is Roadie said I was an idiot, and I think he’s maybe right?”

Her head tipped to the side gently as he spoke, one eye narrowed in confusion and the other eyebrow raised, leaving her looking concerned still.  She didn’t deny it or offer him any out and he gritted his teeth, eyes lowered to the ground as he went on, finding himself shifting his weight between his foot and his prosthetic leg, his hands gesturing helplessly at his sides as he spoke.  He couldn’t bring himself to look at her and talk at the same time but he couldn’t bring himself to shut up and let the silence hang there either so he went on, stuttering every so often over some of the words as he tried to grab them out of thin air.

“Maybe he’s right about how I been actin’ about the omnic thing, an’ maybe I was wrong about it anyway.”  That thought had come to him suddenly and uncensored, and he winced over it.  It didn’t feel right, but he followed the thread as he thought aloud, suddenly confused and off balance, moreso than before and moreso than just because he was talking to her.  Apologizing was one thing but this was going down a different avenue he wasn’t ready for despite the fact that his mouth kept moving over the words.  “… maybe it was better for all this ‘greater good’ junk.  Or harmony and whatnot.”  He stopped short of adding ‘like what the bots have talked about’.  That particular idea was too much.  The words, despite his choice of them, came out with a tone that was a little lost but genuine, as if he was considering them fully for the first time.  It wouldn’t be inaccurate to think so.

“What I’m tryin’ ta say is.  Well, Hog says I get a little over-enthused sometimes, right?  An’ I think maybe… I got it in the wrong direction.  Kinda pointed it over one way when I shoulda done it in another, and I’m thinkin’ maybe it wasn’t all that fair.”

His eyes had turned upwards and had been tracing the ceiling as he spoke with a pained grimace and he didn’t notice how close she was until she right in front of him, nearly touching.  She had slipped the book onto the edge of the pool table at some point and stood with her hands crossed gently in front of her chest instead, a pose and expression he couldn’t understand on her face.  He lost his voice for a moment as he looked down at her, pupils wide and dark and lips parted and a sense of something like panic starting to rise in his chest.  He could see everything about her from the vantage point and all it did was make him feel hopeless.  His voice dropped down to a mumble.  “Think I’m tryin’ to say I’m sorry.”

She looked at him silently for a moment and close as she was he felt like she could see every bit of him, every flaw and every mistake and something about it struck his chest and made him feel like an utter failure and whatever Roadhog had said he suddenly believed.  His hands lowered, still held out palms out to either side of himself in a weak defense as he looked at her, never quite straight on lest he ruin whatever tenuous thing that was keeping her there.  She hesitated, her expression unreadable, before lifting her eyes to him and sidling closer carefully, her bare arm and her gauntlet sliding forwards across the exposed skin of his torso.  Trying again, trying to make it better this time and proper as she nestled herself carefully against his chest, taking care not to look at him, instead tucking herself too closely under the curve of his chin, against his collar bone, and it would have been so much better if she had done it briskly, he thought. 

But she pulled him tightly despite how his breath caught and his hands remained raised just as they had before as if he were frightened to lower them.  She lingered there for a moment in a way that both surprised and terrified him.  Long enough that his pose began to feel strange and ridiculous, and despite the fear of doing so he slowly lowered his hands to place them gently on her shoulders with an intent he wasn’t sure of at first, and it was awkward and hesitant and terrible but he moved them inwards across her back just slightly, just enough that it didn’t seem like he was pushing her away.  It was the most he felt like he could do.  It was overwhelming.  It was definitely worse than the cookies, but he found himself reluctant to pull away all the same.

She did, this time, and she was definitely saving him rather than the other way around as he let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in a thankfully silent sigh.  He had to calm himself one way or another, and though it didn’t particularly help a quiet giggle erupted from his throat as he slouched again, putting his hand down on the edge of the pool table for some much-needed support but in a way he hoped would appear more casual than anything else.

She was looking at him a bit strangely, but she was smiling, not the bright, excited kind he’d seen in Egypt, nothing like that, but something soft and nice and genuine anyway and his own lips curled upward in a more hopeful one of his own in a response he probably couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to.  Her voice matched her expression as she spoke, a small thing that hit him hard regardless.

“Thank you.  I appreciate it.”

He couldn’t maintain eye contact though and ruffled his hair with his free hand nervously with a nod that he tried so hard to make look casual and a mumbled, “Yeah, anytime.”  It took him a moment but he blinked at his own words, chewing on the inside of his cheek as a thought struck him and he glanced to her from the corners of his eyes, biting his lip as he considered before pushing himself gingerly off of the pool table and lifting a hand in a small, circular motion out in front of himself.

“Actually… I mean.  I probably still ought to owe you, considering the shields an’ all.  Doubt I would’ve made it without your help.  And the turrets.  Could’ve been it for me, really.  That’s probably worth a favor, yeah?”

She looked at him so strangely that he thought he made a mistake and he lifted his hands with a backwards step, eyebrows raised in concession.  “Or nah… just a thought… you saved my skin so I just wanted to show some appreciation.”

He could see the way her lips curled upwards on one side in something like a benign smirk and she laughed, just once, a quiet thing that almost wasn’t even there and shook her head, not an answer to his request but something else.  Disbelief, maybe.  He couldn’t quite tell, and he felt like that was true for a lot of her expressions, but she eventually spoke with a surprising look on her features, something sly and calculating.

“Alright.  But I _truly_ get to choose this one, agreed?”

“… oh.”  His mind puzzled over that one for a second before he really understood.  Both of their hands had been forced somewhat… the favor over the omnics was a waste, but maybe it wasn’t as much her fault as he’d been letting himself think.  Not given some of the thoughts that had occurred to him during their conversation.  He didn’t know if they were right or not still, but he knew they were concepts she believed in, and it wasn’t any wonder that she felt like she had no other choice.  His jaw worked over the idea for a moment before, brow furrowed as he considered the meaning of it before he nodded and looked back to her. 

“Alright.  Yeah.”  The grin that took over his face felt like a relief, like the first real one for days, for half a week even, since she’d helped with the arm.  She smiled as well, wide enough that it made her eyes narrow, and he looked at her wide-eyed for a second before his eyes caught hold of the book at the edge of the pool table and he sucked in a breath.  A part of him wanted desperately to stay and another wanted him desperately to leave to cool his racing nerves so he settled with the latter, backing away a step or two from her—still far too close for concentration and nearly tripping back against the couch—and ducked his head with the suggestion. 

“I probably oughta get back to Roadie, try to clear some things up.  Seemed a bit cranky when I left ‘im.”

She had caught his glance to the book and did the same, lifting her hand to gently curl her fingers around it and pulling it towards herself with an agreeable nod and a faint little smile as she looked back to him, as he circled around her towards the door, her eyes following him carefully.

“Perhaps I will see you at dinner.”

He found himself bounding backwards towards the exit with a nod of his own, the grin still there but a bit less bright by the mere strain of maintaining it against the course of different emotions crowding his brain.

“Alright, yeah.  I’ll see you then, deffo.”

He felt like he could only breathe once out of sight of her and continued down the corridor backwards for a few steps as if checking to make sure she wasn’t following him before finally turning and letting his posture slump forwards in a strange kind of exhaustion, slowing his steps.  Everything felt so different somehow, but he wondered if Roadhog would let him back in the workshop.  He desperately needed somewhere quiet but occupying to be.  Maybe if he just told him.  Maybe _he_ wouldn’t be mad at him anymore, either.

At any rate, something in his chest felt lighter and his head, while pounding with some new form of adrenaline, felt clearer somehow.  He tried to ignore what he had said about the omnics for the time being.  It was simply more than he could handle, and it might be something that, when he rethought it, he ended up completely disagreeing with.  That was for some other time though, sometime when he didn’t feel like he was going to fall over from the stress of it.  Regardless of where he landed on the omnic thing one thing did seem pretty clear: maybe compromising wasn’t so bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Roadhog is tired of waiting for Jamison to figure things out and get over himself with some tough love methods
> 
> Roadhog is a one man therapy team
> 
> I like to (I dunno if that’s the right phrase but…) think that all of the descriptions of Mako ‘losing his humanity’ and whatnot through the news reels and how things are in the comic and whatnot are a result of his involvement in the ALF and losing something really important to him in the explosion or results of it, specifically family, not necessarily like wife/husband/kids or whatever but like a brother and that’s what started the downward spiral so that now that he is sort of developing a weird family of his own again it could sort of be bringing that back out in him and he doesn’t want to see someone he cares about (because he does care about Jamie just… I mean… it’s Jamie) screw things up as badly as he did so that’s why he’s trying to keep him out of trouble in more than one way.
> 
> Another heacanon: Roadhog is great at claw games.


	18. Chapter 18

It wasn’t as though things went back to normal overnight, although Satya found herself questioning what the word ‘normal’ meant anymore.  Although the mood hadn’t quite been as easy as it was before the Numbani mission, after she thought about it she realized that it had been only a very brief time when she and Jamison had felt in sync, perhaps even just a day or so, and she supposed such a huge blow as Numbani was to his emotions would naturally have upset whatever tenuous balance they had struck.  She was just glad it wasn’t as catastrophic as it has seemed.

There was still a tension.  The trio of omnics were still on base, though they stuck largely to themselves save for the occasional exploratory foray from their quarters.  It seemed fair to her as they waited for clearance to leave rather than keep them locked up somewhere for the sake of the comfort of three team members.  Torbjörn had on more than one occasion grudgingly allowed their presence in the same room as himself with only minor grumbling and prematurely leaving with an excuse to be somewhere else and Roadhog was impossible to read but she could swear he fixed them with hard, solid looks whenever they were in sight.  Jamison’s eyes widened, his pupils went dark, and she could she the strain on his expression and the way he held his breath as he kept his thoughts to himself and abruptly left whatever room they were in.

It had resulted in him _not_ going to dinner as promised; the omnics were there simply to socialize, and though she’d waited a bit longer than usual in the mess hall using the opportunity of speaking with Kalsang as an excuse neither he nor Roadhog showed.  She assumed they would raid the kitchen later, but a part of her wanted to bring some to the workshop, where she was sure they were hiding.  For whatever reason the idea made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t possibly explain, somehow pleasing even while it put her on edge, and so she decided against it, simply making sure there were leftovers easily available instead.

She did enjoy the presence of the omnics, although some of what they said seemed either contradictory or impossible and some of it sounded too simple to be what they really meant.  The talk of compromise they repeatedly proposed intrigued her but left her somewhat muddled… coming from beings like themselves, beings who had been persecuted after proving themselves harmless and intent on healing what damage had been done, she also deeply understood the mistrust… and while she didn’t feel it herself after reading Jamison and Roadhog’s files, the information on the Australian Liberation Front, the articles on Korea and Russia… she could understand the idea of the hatred, even, from those most greatly affected by the war.  And its after-effects, no matter what the cause of those may be.  It was more than she liked to think about sometimes.

But what was there now—all of it—was different, somehow.  There was a slight feeling of distance still with Jamison, but the imbalance seemed to have corrected itself somewhat, somehow, and she could breathe around him more easily, she felt less on guard, and it seemed as though the attitude had permeated the air around them and around the team as well, as though they had both finally caught up to the camaraderie the other team members had been pressing towards them.  As if they had been the barrier that had been holding it back, although she was certain that was all just in her mind.  She found herself laughing more easily—quiet things—soft smiles, curious conversations and enthusiastic questions. 

Things were quiet around the base, which in some ways was good and in others was not.  She knew that Winston was busy gathering intelligence but she also knew that funding, while partially steady from some very invested and loyal donors, mostly came from the mercenary work, and with so much time off she had begun to become concerned for the organization and, frankly, her own lifestyle and general well-being.  There had been three days without even discussion of something new.  But Lena seemed unconcerned, and she was closest to Winston.  Satya idly wondered if something big might be on the horizon.

It didn’t seem wise to spend the time worrying, though, and much of the team seemed to figure they should enjoy it while they could, whether in the form of practice or play, especially to ward off going stir-crazy.  Roadhog and Reinhardt had attempted to grapple one-another which had proved to have interesting results, both mountains doing very little to topple the other before eventually giving up, amicably on Reinhardt’s part and likely to Roadhog as well.  Together everyone had rooted through most of what the old base had to offer, rediscovering old equipment, fixing consoles, reading as many files as they could get their hands on.  The next supply run would be coming soon, however, which meant a job needed to be coming in as well.

They had salvaged an old basketball hoop, much like the one in Numbani, from somewhere among the old boxes and stacks and had riveted it to the wall in one of the misused storage areas, the boxes and crates and equipment pressed as far to the side as could be allowed for room on the metal floor for a makeshift court.  The basketballs needed to be inflated, but all of the supplies were there, and every so often she could hear noise coming from the storage area and echoing down the corridor.  Particularly of the scraping of Jamison’s prosthetic leg, the loud thundering of Reinhardt’s and Roadhog’s gaits, and the characteristic zip of Lena as they all moved against one-another, managing it poorly in the small space but seeming to enjoy it all the same.  So she’d gone to watch to fill the idle time, settling against the doorframe, leaning there seemingly unnoticed, watching Reinhardt’s impressive height stand in front of the hoop, decidedly blocking whatever was coming his way with deep laughs straight from the heart of him.

There didn’t seem to be any rules aside from all of the others simply attempting to get the ball through the hoop.

The large man swatted multiple attempts as Lena attempted elegant shots towards the rim and Jamison more or less just threw the ball artlessly towards the backboard as if it were one of his grenades, but none of them ever reached it.  Roadhog had opted to sit on the ground, his large legs spread in front of himself as he ate one of the cupcakes Mercy had made and Jamison stood beside him in that hunched pose he so often had, even without the tire strapped to his back.  She supposed some of it was habit and some of it was the nature of his prosthetic leg… she was uncertain, honestly, how he managed to balance on it so well.  The harness was gone and she noticed the discoloration of his skin where it typically was, somehow having missed it before.  It was hard to tell if he was simply clean underneath, or if the rest of him had some semblance of a tan.

Lena scrambled around Reinhardt’s feet before zipping lightly up his back and shoulders, tossing the ball through the hoop with a playful giggle as she zipped away just as quickly, her voice bubbling playfully over the words.  “Score one for me!”

“Zat is not fair, meiner Freundin!”  The words came from the large man good-naturedly, rolling out of him with a laugh as he turned his attention to Roadhog and Jamison, expectant.

Jamison’s glance to Roadhog proved that he would get no help there, and Reinhardt picked a ball from the air mid-bounce and curled it between his large fingers before launching it towards Jamison in a pass.  The lanky Junker caught it, but it was clear to see that the force of it as his balance shifted, and he looked back to the large man quizzically, attempting to find a way even just visually to the basket behind him.  It took only a second or two before he muttered, seemingly disheartened as if just realizing it. 

“… bloody ‘ell you’re big a big one, ain’t ya?”

Reinhardt laughed, that booming thing that shook the entirety of his chest and Jamison stood up to his full height to get a better bearing on it, but he was still nearly a foot shorter and multiple pounds less and he weighed his options with a look of uncertainty but determination.  He backed away a step or two and looked back to Roadhog, who was finishing the last of the cupcake, content to be where he was. 

“Really, mate?  Nothin’?  You’re kinda embarrassin’ me here.”

Roadhog grunted, the sound rolling in his throat like a chuckle as he re-buckled his mask and got to his feet, his large hands tugging his trousers up with the motion as the laugh continued, seemingly at Jamison’s expense, as though he were enjoying watching the lanky man struggle.

“Figure it out for yourself, Jamison.”

Jamison narrowed his eyes and glanced quickly from Roadhog to Reinhardt and then back again with a look that seemed to signify irritation before rearing back, his body bending at the spine, back arched and hands high over his head gripping the ball and he launched it hard at Roadhog’s gut with a loud, strained noise.  It was hard to tell if it was strategy or just revenge, but as Roadhog grunted, the ball bounced high over Reinhardt’s hands, and it became clear it was going to decisively miss its target Jamison took off, faster than he had any right to be, diving between Reinhardt’s legs feet-first as if sliding onto a base, and somehow, somewhere one of his mines entered the equation—one he apparently simply kept in his pocket, a concept that should not have surprised Satya at that point and yet still did.  Some split second mental calculation later and a click of a detonator and he was behind Reinhardt’s back and in the air, arms outstretched to snag the ball far too high off of the ground before gravity took him over and brought him crashing down, his hands gripping the rim with as the ball moved through it and the board creaked with the effort of his abrupt stop, Jamison’s feet dangling not far from the ground.  His prosthetic hand took most of the force and he lowered himself gingerly from the hoop to the ground.

Reinhardt was gracious in his defeat, going so far as to lower a large hand to proudly ruffle Jamison’s dirty hair with a loud and hearty laugh, setting it to something not too wild but tousled and in disarray. 

“Zat was impressive, friend!  Such ingenuity!”

Roadhog seemed accepting enough of the outcome, even if he was clearly annoyed by his role in it.  Lena was already darting forward to give Jamison a light punch on the arm, perhaps having learned from the hug that it might be unappreciated, and giggled as she backed away in a skip.  Jamison still looked awkward when he was subjected to the affection, but she could swear there was less anxiety in his posture, in the way he stood and in the way he held his shoulders, but most noticeably in the thin and somewhat sheepish grin as Reinhardt’s hand ruffled his head, nothing manic like she was used to seeing.  Hesitant, but without the distrust from before.

Lena bounced back a step or two with a change in tone, still chipper but more businesslike as she snagged the basketball off of the floor and passed it quickly over to Roadhog in an attempt to get him to take his turn, where it bounced ineffectually off of his belly, again.  Undeterred, she gave him a beaming smile and turned it towards the others as well.  “This was fun, but I ought to go help Winston for a bit.  Sorry, loves.  Maybe next time he’ll get to join in!”

She was gone before anyone could say anything, though as she zipped by she offered Satya a wave.  Lena’s departure past Satya drew attention to her that she hadn’t intended for and the three remaining members of the team looked at her as if they hadn’t known she was there.  Jamison stood a bit straighter, his eyes widening slowly and his lips curling upwards in a smile.  Roadhog lifted his free hand to wave and she waved sheepishly back, feeling the tips of her ears burning for reasons she couldn’t quite define, but it felt almost like she had been spying on the two Junkers all over again, a memory that still upset her sometimes, still felt as though it may have been wrong, even if she had been given no choice.  “… Hello.”

Before any tension could build Reinhardt’s voice boomed forth with enthusiasm.  “Satya, hello!  What a surprise to see you!  Would you like to try?”

Her eyes widened slowly as she took an inadvertent step backwards, lifting her hands in front of herself with splayed fingers and a gracious smile.  “No, thank you, I… I only heard something down the corridor and decided to investigate.”  The corners of her smile turned a bit awkward with her excuse and she smoothed her expression out to something more genuine, if no less embarrassed.  “I have never played, regardless.” She hesitated, feeling as though there ought to be more to say, and added on a half-thought, not sure who it was meant for.  “There was not time at the Vishkar Corporation for such things.”

Reinhardt’s laugh was agreeable and she didn’t feel any pressure from it, which was a greater relief than she would have expected.  “We will teach you!  Although perhaps with fewer explosions and more of the correct rules.”

As her gaze shifted to Jamison she found that he had been peering at her with eyes widened owlishly, blinking abruptly and profusely as Reinhardt alluded to him, one eye narrowed towards the large man and his lips pressed together in something close to a pout.  Before he had time to say anything his eyes went wide with a loud ‘ouf!” escaping him as a basketball hit him square in the back, Roadhog standing perfectly still behind him by the time he turned around.  The lanky Junker’s attention shifted fully as he snagged the basketball from the ground and took a few steps towards Roadhog with the ball held threateningly close to his chest. 

“Oh, you’ve gone and done it now, mate.”

It was clear that the interaction was about to turn to all-out war and she took a careful step backward, stifling a laugh by catching her lower lip between her teeth until she trusted herself to speak.  “I think perhaps another time, Reinhardt, although I do appreciate the offer.”

The large man chuckled and waved her away as Jamison jumped and launched the ball square at Roadhog’s mask with a high-pitched, strained noise, the attack easily batted away and Roadhog grabbing a different ball, lumbering forward for his own attack.

Reinhardt waved her towards the door, urging her to leave before chaos fully erupted, and she slipped back into the corridor quickly, her hand covering her mouth to keep herself quiet as the sounds of Jamison and Roadhog’s strained voices burst out between the sound of equipment clattering to the ground and balls bouncing in absolute mayhem with the occasional high-pitched laugh, interrupted by Reinhardt’s clear attempts to separate them from each other.  The sounds followed her down the corridor all the way to the kitchen, where she finally allowed herself a smile and a gentle breath of air with just enough voice to be a chuckle.

It had been so strange to see Jamison appear so genuinely happy outside of the context of blowing something up, although she supposed something _had_ been blown up.  But for once, the explosion was irrelevant to the equation.   She found herself smiling because of it and feeling lighter herself, her breath emptying her lungs as though she had been withholding some of it with each exhale without even noticing.  It was a strange feeling.  But a good one, she decided. 

 

* * *

 

Her usual reasons for missing sleep hadn’t haunted her since the night in the kitchen with Jamison but now it was something else entirely.  The biggest issue was the dreams she had been having, exacerbated, it seemed, by the new developments—knowing what it felt like to have his arms even just pressed cautiously to her shoulders, the memory of having her arms around him, the way he had looked when he apologized, the strange way he’d begun to smile.

It felt like a combination off too many factors and it seemed to have triggered something in her mind that she hadn’t at all intended.  To say she hadn’t thought much of taking hold of him at the time wouldn’t quite be the truth, but she hadn’t thought of it quite in the same _way_ that her mind had decided to interpret it.  Her touches were meant to be like Lena’s hug—brief and friendly, a light thing that faded after it was given but both her original desperate grasp of him from behind and the proper hug—proper on her end at least—had ended up going wrong somehow and she had lost herself pressed up against the warmth of his skin, the scent of sweat and explosives against his back that she had tried to wash off in the second shower of the day but it was burned into her memory.  She had indulged herself for longer than she had wanted to and seemingly for longer than he was comfortable with, but it wasn’t just the feel of him: she wanted some reaction, to know it wasn’t just her but that she was getting something back.  Maybe it was selfish but it hurt when he pulled away the first time and, while it wasn’t completely fulfilling, it left her feeling lighter when he stayed the second.

That wasn’t the worst of it, though.

Her mind unhelpfully transported her in her sleep, pressed up against his collarbone, and it would have been as simple as lifting her chin, as simple as him lowering his, and outside of her waking mind she could practically see him, the both of them through the haze of lashes on half-lidded eyes and the smell of smoke and gunpowder on his lips.

It made her mouth feel dry and her heart beat in her chest, put an ache there that was also somehow light and glowing.  It had only been one day but by the next she was actively trying to avoid sleep, and a part of her wanted to avoid _him_ , however unfair that seemed.  That concept left her feeling upset, too.  It felt like a no-win situation and it frustrated her.  The fact that there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it only made it worse. 

 

* * *

 

Winston had called a meeting with her, and only with her.  Well, Lena was there too, but as the woman seemed to be second in command that was no surprise.  It didn’t take long for them to begin discussing business and they all stood in the conference room, Winston and Lena angled slightly behind the console and Satya off to the side, close enough to see what was on the monitor as Winston occasionally flicked through it, giving her a view of each file that was being addressed.  His deep voice filled up the mostly empty room, sounding concerned and attempting to withhold a sense of urgency.

“We’ve been in contact with Fareeha Amari—or Pharah—from Helix Security International.  They’re a security firm run out of Egypt… which made it strange that they hadn’t been hired as protection on the archaeology dig job that we took over a short while ago.  We have strong ties with her.  She’s an old friend and we attempt not to work on her territory, as it were, without discussing it with her, but the science team had documents suggesting that they’d inquired with Helix and that Helix had been otherwise occupied.”

He sighed, pushing his glasses up, and rolled his tone sardonically over the words.  “Apparently that information was falsified.  We—”  He paused as his voice dropped to a rumble, a self-effacing thing, making it clear where he placed the blame.  “I should have looked into it more closely.”  But he went on with a breath that cleared his tone back to simple business, however concerning it might be.

“Stranger and more importantly though, we contacted Pharah shortly afterwards about the suits being used by some of the mercenaries, the jump jets armed with rockets.”  His large fingers flicked over the display to show the suits worn by their attackers in Egypt, the flash of rocket fire that she remembered _very_ well.  “It’s a design intended to be used and manufactured exclusively for Helix, so the idea that it might have been her people attacking was naturally concerning, whether out of a misunderstanding or something worse.  Our discussions illustrated that Helix knew nothing of either the archaeological dig itself or the use of jump jets outside of the company.  And from our correspondence it sounded as though she wasn’t sure how an outside group would have gotten their hands on them.”  Winston’s face had wrinkled in uncertainty, a deep crease on his brow and his nostrils flaring with a breath.  “Everything suggests that everyone in her team is reliable and it may have been either theft of the plans or a weakness in loyalty on the manufacturer’s side.”

He pulled in another breath for a deep sigh and gestured to the console, clearing it with one large palm as he looked between Satya and Lena, lifting a hand to scratch behind his neck as he did so.

“There are two things we need to investigate, and we need to keep it quiet.  First, the scientific team.  If they’re legitimate, civilians who just somehow got in over their heads, or if they’re some unknown force with a goal we don’t yet understand.  Second, as a favor to Pharah, whatever weakness in the supply chain lead to the jump jets getting in the hands of people outside of Helix.  As you could guess, finding who’s responsible for their use is very important to her; the company’s name and reputation are at risk, but more importantly is that anyone could be caught in the line of fire should they have fallen into the hands of criminals... which, even though there’s been no explanation for the attack of the dig in Egypt, it seems likely they may have.”

Winston sighed as if all of the words had exhausted him and raised his eyes from Lena, who had been silent the entire time, to Satya, the both of them looking at her in silence for a moment.  Their features were expectant, though trying not to seem as though they were pressuring.  He turned his eyes to Satya.

“That’s why we need someone like you.  We know your capabilities with espionage and the ability to not just move quietly but also get into places we might otherwise not be able to go.  We need to look into the science team first… they might even have a link to the jump jets, if it was some kind of sabotage.  I doubt they’d simply have a store of money somewhere marked as “crooked bribe”, but we do need to know if they’re legitimate, or if there are any suspicious dealings with their bank accounts.  Some of the hacking I can do from here, but we need as much evidence as possible before we could do anything about it, especially considering our, uh…”  The gorilla paused, eyes shifting upwards as he gestured his hand in a circular motion.  “… tentative legal status.  So we’d need you to get in and investigate as much as possible before getting out quietly.” 

He stopped there and paused as he looked at her, his eyes uneasy and his body shifting his weight subtly before going on, more slowly and deliberately.  Cautious.

“That said… provided you’ll take the job we’re going to be providing you with a partner.  Although I know of your considerable talents when it comes to infiltration, we don’t know how much area you’ll need to cover, and although it may sound counter-intuitive we want to have a sort of Xanatos gambit, as it were, in place.  We’ll be taking out their surveillance probably via electric pulse, but we’re not completely sure how extensive it is or how their security systems will reply to something like that, whether they’ll recover quickly or not, what kind of resistance there might be, that sort of thing.  So we’re sending you with a partner to create a distraction if necessary.”

The word ‘distraction’ was a concern.  She had a thought of where Winston’s words were going and despite how much she had come to enjoy Jamison’s presence she was having difficulty wrapping her head around the logic of what she believed was about to come.  It was supposed to be a quiet mission.  It was supposed to be simple, in, out, no one alerted or harmed.

“Who, exactly, will be coming with me?”

Winston looked at her closely and braced himself, his lips pressed together as he pushed a careful breath out through his nostrils.

“Junkrat.”

 

* * *

 

She found him in the workshop as expected and he seemed busy, moreso than usual, tongue stuck from the corner of his mouth, some kind of drill riveting thin holes through metal, the sort that looked like the side of a hollow, inactive mine.  It would have been difficult for her to concentrate on what he was doing even if she could have simply from the adrenaline rushing through her veins.  It had given her a completely different purpose.  It had been explained, of course, and she supposed it made sense; if some organization was targeting Overwatch it would be unwise to tip them off to the fact that Overwatch was aware and was actively looking into it.  If Satya were caught it would damage or destroy that subterfuge, but Jamison…

Ostensibly the only people who knew that the Junkers were working with the organization were close compatriots, loyal parties, or judging by the encounter at Numbani, dead.  Being unaffiliated, officially speaking, with the organization and with a long history of misbehaving meant that Jamison was a perfect individual to provide a distraction while she went in and did the real work of finding out what they needed to know.  If there was no resistance everything worked out fine.  If there was, it was targeted at Jamison who was simply considered a criminal there to break in and steal some sort of priceless artifact, cause some mayhem and escape, and everything worked out fine.  Jamison would return to hiding with Overwatch, explanations would be made and disagreements smoothed over.  Roadhog was considered but ultimately Winston had stated he would rather the larger Junker not go—it was too many moving parts, too many people to worry about, and it was best if it stayed just the two of them.

It was stupid and it was dangerous and even though it had been explained she could wrap her head around it but couldn’t understand it in her gut.  Still… their experiences in both Egypt and Numbani had been close enough calls to warrant concern.  She wasn’t mad, not really.  That would be the wrong word for it entirely.  But she was incredibly confused from the suddenness and complexity of it all and disbelief and it was overriding her ability to seem calm. 

Her steps were too heavy as she moved through the workshop door and while Roadhog looked up immediately with a sense, she thought, of actual concern, Jamison remained curled over his work until her rapid steps brought her closer, at which he looked up at her with the welding goggles still on and a sudden wide, beaming grin as the drill came to a slow stop.  “Oi, well wouldja look at that.  Just the person I wanted to talk to!”

He had clearly missed or ignored the signals she was sending off and she looked at him, perplexed but still indignant, her hands beginning to curl into loose fists at her sides.  He scrambled to his feet and brushed metal scrapings unceremoniously off of himself to the floor before lifting up the goggles to just below his widow’s peak, the dirt smudged on his forehead ending where the goggles had begun.  His own chest rose and fell in one big, excited breath and he tipped his head to the side, still grinning.  “Looks like we’re gonna be partners, yeah? 

The fact that he had been told before her stung for some reason, and though her brow remained creased with disappointment and her lips pressed gently together in disapproval the look of irritation on her face was flagging under the onslaught of his enthusiasm to something more like a simple, dull sort of hurt.  By the time she answered it was quiet and merely a low, vaguely displeased thing.  “Yes.  It appears so.” 

He noticed, finally, and she saw sharp teeth catch his lower lip.  Some of her expression echoed back on his own features, the hurt there as well in the furrow that developed under the hard surface of the welding goggles but he shook it off with determination, the grin flagging to what she felt was a more appropriate smile, just as genuine but more subdued. 

“Gonna be a careful one, Winston said, more or less.  Said I have to be on me best behavior, keep it quiet like a mouse until, well.  Until I don’t.”  He paused, cringing apologetically, and tried again.  “ _If_ I don’t.”  The smile came back, this one excited again, his eyes wide and enthusiastic.  There was a too-long pause as he looked at her, his expression resolutely failing to change, and then his eyes dropped to her gauntleted hand.

“Come here.”  She didn’t have time to stop him or say anything before he abruptly reached for her hand, the metal of his prosthetic against her gauntlet, and pulled her forwards towards his workbench.  For a moment she was too surprised to say anything, too surprised to pull away until they were close enough and their fingers slipped away from one-another without any resistance. 

A part of her resolved to be irritated at the treatment but she could see more of the hollowed out, lower profile mines arranged neatly in three rows of three, and despite it she was taken aback a bit by the suddenly apologetic nature of his smile as he looked back to her, as if he realized his excitement had gotten the better of him.  And honestly, looking over the new mines, she found her curiosity and her concern piqued, recalling the last time he had tinkered with the explosives.

She glanced towards Roadhog and found him watching carefully, though after being caught he lowered his head back down to whatever he was working on, not too fast lest it draw attention.

“This is somethin’ I been workin’ on.  Should do the job nice, depending on what I end up bein’ needed for.  Gonna keep it _real_ quiet, figured it out after tryin’ to copy some of Lena’s stuff.  Haven’t managed that though, the swirly bit.  That’s somethin’ else entirely.  But this…”  His rambling came fast and he stood up straight, looking over the row of mines fondly, his hands on his hips and his foot bouncing on its toes as a high giggle bubbled up from his throat.

He sucked in a quick breath and let it out as an “Oh!” of realization.  The sudden interjection surprised her and she looked at him wide-eyed as he did the same to her, chin tipping at a slight angle as a grin spread across his features, his voice lowering to something that, were it not so excited, could possibly sound menacing.  “You should come see.”

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to.  She wasn’t sure if she wanted any of it, not right now and possibly not ever.  Working with him was fine but working with him exclusively and on a mission that seemed so different than what he was capable of—one that inherently put the both of them in far more danger if they couldn’t keep their presence unknown—was a thought that had already exhausted her.  A firefight was one thing.  This was something different.  As she looked at the mines from the corner of her eyes she could see the excitement drain from him in her peripheral vision, his shoulders slowly losing their weight to gravity.  But he took in a deep breath and regrouped as she looked back to him with one eye gently narrowed and an uncertain look on her face, himself still smiling in a way that she could tell was at least somewhat forced, and surprised herself by how easily she could recognize it. 

It pulled at something in her and she looked between him and the mines sitting on the workbench.  She had trusted him before.  Perhaps she ought to try trusting him now.  Despite her lack of enthusiasm she nodded and his features brightened again as he swept up one of the empty ones from the workbench and then another from a stack off to the side, a live one she assumed given the fact that it was not hollow in the center, and began bounding backwards towards the door with Roadhog watching for the duration of the time they were in sight, the pneumatic door hissing open as Jamison got closer and he turned around to walk appropriately down the corridor as she followed behind, occasionally glancing over his shoulder towards her as if making sure she was still there, or to share a particularly important bit of information.  “Oh, you’re gonna like this one.  Definitely somethin’ new, lucky coincidence I was workin’ on it.  Had to do some tricky engineering, I’ve only done a couple’a tests so far but…” 

He trailed off in a voice bursting with positivity that gave her a boost of curiosity and peace of mind and she could tell he’d wanted to say more.  Likely in the interest of not giving anything further away, he managed to bite his tongue until they’d reached the testing field.  It was littered as usual with scorch marks and divots in the grass, and she watched as he placed the hollow mine on a bench, cradling the live one in his hands.  It looked like most of the others she'd seen him use but thinner, holes drilled into the outer rim and on top, and he procured some pieces of thick, columnar metal cut into screws and painted green and turned them into four of the circular holes next to each other, the mine tipped away from himself.  Satya backed away a step or two with a cringe, wondering if he ought to be using so much force on a live explosive as it was, but little happened save for a gentle clattering sound that seemed like something metal and circular housed within the casing of the mine.  Soon enough he darted forward with that awkward gait of his and set the mine down carefully in a spot where the grass had already been scorched.  The green screws pointed towards them and the open holes were pointed towards a row of dummy training bots, the fronts of them littered with dents that she could see the light bouncing off of irregularly even from the distance.  He bounded back to her, standing straighter with a wide grin.

“A’right.  Ready?”

She was absolutely not.  She looked wide-eyed from the mine to him and back, her eyebrows knitted together in concern as she looked at the marks on the training bots, wondering if they were made by him and only able to come to the conclusion that they were.  “Shouldn’t we be… standing behind something?  Be somewhere safe?”

He looked down at her and blinked as if in surprise as if the question itself had been ridiculous, or as if he hadn’t even considered it, and then tipped his chin lightly, one eye narrowing as the other eyebrow raised.  “We are.”  Seeing the doubt still overwhelming her features he blinked once more with a sudden thought, the smile briefly fading away as he curled his prosthetic limb in front of her, to his side, all sincerity as he gestured as if brushing her around his side and behind himself, not touching her but ushering her into the position nonetheless.  “Just… stand behind me.”

It didn’t seem sufficient and it didn’t seem safe, but most things with him didn’t.  He had clearly already tried it before with no apparent injuries, or at least no serious ones, and so she did as suggested and tried to calm her mind.  A few long, deep breaths helped her to focus and she noticed that he waited, his left hand out of sight but no doubt on the trigger of the detonator, the corners of his eyes visible every so often as he looked at her before she breathed a calming sigh, the tension mostly draining from her shoulders before his attention moved forward again, his features pinching, she imagined as he made some final calculations. 

Maybe she didn’t need to stand as closely as she did but it seemed safer there, the side of her body nearly touching the back of his despite the dirtiness of him, the soot and smell of gunpowder so characteristic with him mixed in with small flecks of metal shaving she could see glittering against his skin amongst the freckles.  His left arm raised with the detonator and he glanced back towards her, his expression fully attentive, and she realized from her position it was difficult to see, so she curled forward ever so slightly, peeking out from behind his back at the mine on the ground some distance away.  Somehow, reflexively, her right hand reached out and curled against a portion of the smooth metal of his prosthetic, possibly to keep her balance and possibly not.  Once he was satisfied she could see she saw his chest raise in a deep, excited breath, his lips curled upwards in an immediate broad smile, and then she heard the gentle _click_ of the detonator.

She held her breath, expecting something explosive.

It was nearly completely silent, the sound of something being ejected from the mine, nothing but the sound of harsh puffs of air whizzing outward combined with a gentle _clink clink clink_ and the immediate thunk of rounded metal striking the training bots, slamming into them one after another and leaving thick dents in their wake before falling abruptly to the ground and everything was perfectly still, having hardly even been disturbed in the first place.  Each projectile that had hit the dummies was a simple sphere of metal, launched in near-silence from each hole in the the mine with force significant enough to cause substantial damage to the training bots.

None of the projectiles, she noticed, had come anywhere near their direction.  She slowly stood up behind him in surprise, her hand—dirtied—slipping off of his prosthetic limb as she stared straight forward at the now-empty, nearly flat cylinder of metal sitting on the ground, perfectly innocuous, stunned.  Jamison looked at it the mine for a moment longer with another deep, satisfied breath and turned over his shoulder to look at her, the rest of his body following quickly after, hunched forward just enough to be at her height as his features spread into a wide grin, both hands raising to either side of his head with fingers curled together and then splaying them apart as if in an explosion, the used-up detonator still held in his left.

“Ka- _boom_.”

She laughed, just once, a light and airy thing and a broad smile gracing her features.  His voice pitched in his typical high-pitched giggle but quieter, no less excited for it.  She found her voice quickly, eyeing the mine in the distance, her eyes half-lidded with the intrigue of it and her hip cocked to the side, arms curling over her chest.  She made sure to hold her right hand away from her skin, curling it into a fist instead to keep the soot and oil contained.

“That is impressive.”

He was already moving backwards out to the remains of the device, gesturing for her to follow him, and after a careful breath she did, slowly and deliberately.  The mine sat there, spent, the explosive middle having bent the metal upwards and she noticed there was no paint on it, no yellow grin, no red frown, no blue smile.  Perhaps it was all too new for him to have chosen a design.

“Thought you might like it.  Bit of a departure, but more something up your alley, I think.  Might not even be lethal, you put big enough rounds in it.”  He curled down over the perfect spheres left amongst the grass, holding one in his hand thoughtfully, lifting it up towards his eye to peer at it.

“And how did you make it so quiet?”

“Like any other silencer.  _Tons_ of baffling.  Pain in the arse to work with, took me _ages_ to get right.”

She smiled in an expression that felt softer than it ought to somehow.  She wasn’t sure why she was compelled to do it, but she leaned down and touched the casing gently with a fingertip, feeling it cool enough to the touch, and picked it up, holding it in her right hand with the pristine white fingertips of her left just barely touching it to maintain its balance in her grip. 

“And these screws are specially made?”

He straightened as he looked at her, the grin turning sly and crooked as he nodded, eyes narrowed in that knowing way just before she went on.

“… and painted green so that you know which direction is safe to stand in if you use them?  So that you can use as many or as few as you wish?”

His lips pulled back to accommodate a pleased clicking sound of confirmation and he winked at her.  “Knew I couldn’t sneak it past you.”

As she turned the dirty casing over in her hands with the thought that she would wash them thoroughly later she felt a heat on her cheeks at the compliment, merely looking closely at the device and taking it in appreciatively.

When she looked up she found him watching her and his eyes darted elsewhere quickly, his hands toying with the metal spheres he had picked up from the ground idly.  The unwelcome thoughts hit her suddenly and she lowered her eyes as well, her expression falling as she glanced from the casing in her hand back to him with a gently creased brow, her voice low and hesitant with concern.

“And you’re okay with this?  With this entire plan?”

He had taken to juggling the small metal spheres with one hand, his eyes watching them rise and fall in arcs as if perfectly distracted from the conversation, as if they could be talking about any inconsequential thing at all.  “Not like I’m gonna get knicked.  Besides, might as well make use of myself.  I ain’t exactly a well-renowned international criminal for nothin’.” 

For some reason it lightened things slightly and made her smirk, her lips curling in a way that almost upset her in their betrayal.  None of it was anything to joke or be lighthearted about and she knew it, a part of her truly upset but another somewhat thrilled by the attitude, and her eyes followed his fingers and hand as well as he juggled the metal spheres so easily.  Her voice remained serious and nearly constrained all traces of amusement, not quite managing.  “I think ‘infamous’ might be a better word.  It is a negative term, if you were not aware.”

He rolled a lazy shrug over his shoulders and gestured idly with the prosthetic, catching the remaining metal spheres in his left hand as he looked back towards her with a lopsided grin.  “Ta-may-to, ta-mah-to.  Might as well use it to our advantage, yeah?  No one knows I’m with Overwatch anyway, or at least can’t prove it.  Lets me earn my keep, maybe helps us figure out what’s goin’ on with these people tryin’ to kill us, an’ it keeps me out of trouble anyway so what’s the harm?”

She smiled and she wasn’t sure why, the thing turning quizzical even as she looked at him.  She looked down at the spent mine in her hand and stared at it for a moment, her thumb idly tracing a barely-visible pattern along the dirtied metal; a thin smiley-face.  Her voice escaped quietly with a sigh that was wholly unintended, the tone difficult to discern. 

“Well… I suppose we’re going to be partners, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk why this note is here just wanted to say i love you guys
> 
> oh but also: I'm still trying to keep in mind the fact that Satya is autistic but I also sort of headcanon that she has an easier time reading Jamison a lot of the time because a lot of his expressions are so extreme? but the subtler stuff she probably misses. idk that's just one thing I was worried about coming across so I wanted to mention it, if it's a concern for anyone pls feel free to mention
> 
> I also headcanon her as getting much better with coping mechanisms for her ocd since she was taken out of the slums by Vishkar so she deals a little better with disorder better than she might otherwise as in it bothers her and she wants to get rid of it but it wouldn't necessarily trigger repetitive behavior too extremely etc and I need to read more about that to see if it seems reasonable but yeah that's another reason I kind of have her as being sort of ok with it in this chapter
> 
> jamie still needs to take a bath though


	19. Chapter 19

They met in the hangar, Tracer and Winston preparing the dropship for the flight as Satya stood to the side, opting to stay out of their way to allow the process to go more smoothly.  She didn’t have to wait long before the now-familiar clink of chains and the uneven thump of Jamison’s peg-leg forced her attention and she turned to look over her shoulder at the two Junkers as they approached.  Roadhog hadn’t been part of the plan, or at least she hadn’t thought so, and she looked at the large man with eyebrows gently raised in an unspoken question, lifting a hand for a silent and somewhat hesitant wave in their direction.

Jamison grinned broadly, an expression almost vicious in its excitement, and Roadhog turned his head to look at the lanky Junker before turning his eyes—most likely anyway—back to her.  His voice lumbered from him, not slow, but deliberate. 

“Keep an eye on him.”

The man could have easily made the words intimidating or even threatening, but there was something almost gentle about them instead, buried under the way his posture stayed firm and still as though he were waiting carefully for her response.

Jamison for his part turned his attention abruptly to the large man and pursed his lips together in a look of displeasure, eyes a bit wide and brow furrowed in an irritation that didn’t manage to cover the strong current of embarrassment underneath it.  He lowered his voice to a sullen whine, the tone quiet as though attempting to keep the response between the two of them, but it would have been impossible not to hear him in the small space.

“… aw c’mon mate, I can take care of meself.”

A low sound came from Roadhog as he turned away from her and reached down with that same unhurried manner and wrapped his hand around the back of Jamison’s harness, lifting him up amidst indignant sputters and a flurry of motion as the lanky man swatted ineffectually against Roadhog’s hand.  Despite Jamison’s height, Roadhog was taller, and seemed to have no issue raising him to where his feet hovered just off of the floor.  It was impressive, Roadhog’s strength, and she looked between the two of them in silence, taking in the display as Jamison uttered a loud, frustrated sound from the back of his throat and finally went still in Roadhog’s grip, his shoulders slumping in limp defeat.  The big man shook him gently to get his attention and raised his free hand to the mask, pointing at both of the eyes before turning the two fingers towards Jamison’s own face.  One finger curled to leave him with a point and his voice rumbled up from his belly slowly to give weight to the words.

“Behave yourself.  Be careful.”

Jamison had crossed his arms over his chest, his teeth working over the inside of his cheek in agitation, and he looked away with his lower lip jutted out in a pout, the expression broken only by a low and venomous mutter.

“Christ mate, a’right.  Swear on me mother’s life.”

Jamison was dropped abruptly, his feet finding purchase on the floor despite the startled sound it wrangled from his throat, and he winced, lowering his posture as Roadhog’s hand came down against the top of his head for a blatantly condescending pat that was immediately and viciously swatted away.  He skittered with as much dignity as he could manage out of Roadhog’s reach, glaring at the man as he pulled himself straight and went about trying to settle his hair by running a hand back through it.  It smoothed out the disarray well enough.

Roadhog had returned his attention to her and she stared at the large man in silence for a moment as she fought to process it.  He repeated the request with less force but with no less sincerity.  There was a weight there and she nodded slowly and carefully, hoping that she managed to convey that it was understood and, in a strange way, appreciated.

It seemed to work.  The Junker returned the gesture nearly perfectly, his head tipped slightly to the side, and in case the approval wasn’t clear he held up a large hand, thumbs-up, before turning and making his way out of the room without so much as a glance at Jamison, who had watched him go carefully, not daring to move beyond the occasional fidget until he was out of sight.

An awkward laugh escaped the Junker as he stood up fully once again, the breath of it sounding relieved if still a bit embarrassed, and he looked towards her with the grin returning under duress, forced but gaining steam.  “Sorry about that.  Hog tends to take the ‘bodyguard’ thing pretty seriously.”

She looked up, finally turning away from where the large Junker had disappeared down the hallway, and raised an eyebrow curiously at Jamison.

“I hope you’re paying him well.”

The statement drew a single loud laugh out of him and he grinned widely, broad enough that it sent the light glinting off of his gold tooth.

“Why d’ya think I had to rob so many banks?”

 

* * *

 

 

Satya and Jamison were given the final briefing on the mission on their way to the drop site.  How they’d enter, what each of their roles was.  Jamison was surprisingly well behaved throughout all of it, although clearly very enthused about the mission despite the fact that even the worst case scenario was meant to be… well, _boring_ by his standards.  She found it a bit surprising. 

It was actually not complex once each piece was explained individually, the series of backup plans creating something that she thought was about as airtight as it could get, all things considered.  In terms of espionage it was alarmingly simple, but then, academic institutions didn’t tend to be hotbeds of this particular type of information gathering.  She thought, perhaps, they might not even run into any problems at all. 

It had even taken very little effort to get into the building; Winston’s research had indicated a somewhat lax security system for the building as a whole and the information bore out.  The zip line from the drop site to the target rooftop, the simple picking of a lock.  An electromagnetic pulse disabled the door alarm, easily written off as faulty wiring, and they were in. 

It was an older building and the blueprints were no longer quite accurate, but the locked area that housed artifacts in a temperature and light controlled room had still been where it ought to be, if more secure than they had expected.  In a way that was maybe better.  It was giving Jamison more to work with, a more believable reason for him to be there, as though he were after some rare item or another housed inside what was essentially a vault.  He seemed to be almost pleased upon investigating the security system.

There were few enough security cameras—where Satya needed to do her work on the upper floors, mostly offices, at any rate—that they merely avoided the areas they were set up, and should anything catch Jamison on camera on the lower floors could just become part of the plan.  The teleporter was set up so that he could regroup with her on the upper floors whenever they needed to wrap the mission up, leaving a clear and easy path to the roof and back across the zipline for pickup.

Simple. 

It left her feeling almost comfortable as she settled into the half-dark of the archaeology director’s office, her fingers tracing over disorganized sheaves of paper, the mess of the place doing its part to keep her from becoming _too_ at ease as she looked over the contents of the desk with Jamison’s voice a constant ebb and flow in her ear as he spoke over the communication system.  Aside from their initial checks to be sure no one else was in their respective areas she wasn’t certain there had been a moment of quiet since they’d gotten into the building.  It wasn’t too difficult to ignore, or rather it had generally been easy enough to keep the idle conversation in the back of her mind while she focused on other things.

“Do you _ever_ stop talking?”  Satya could feel the amusement in her tone, lamentable yet still there in the subdued response to his chatter, her own voice kept as low as possible.  The dim glow of the computer screen beside her went temporarily ignored in favor of the mess on the desk.  She knew the tendency of people to scribble deeply private things on seemingly inconsequential scraps of paper despite the availability of password-protected technology, and while the fact still baffled her from time to time she had a feeling she would be grateful for it soon enough.

There was a beat after her question before he replied, a pause that lingered to the point where she noticed and paused, herself, her eyes lifting from the desk below a furrowed brow, briefly concerned that she had said something wrong.  She took a breath, lips parted to follow up with something less severe when his voice cut back in.

“… if someone gives me a reason to.”

His reply was slow, his voice pulled into a low drawl and strangely husky in a way that took her out of her concentration.  The thought struck her that perhaps it was simply how he sounded when he was attempting to be quiet, but the assessment didn’t seem quite right.  She certainly hadn’t heard it before.  She took an idle moment to puzzle over it, the conflict in interests between the tone of his voice and the mission manifesting on her features as a faint frown before she dragged herself back to the task at hand, honing in once more on the papers between her fingers, and she realized too late that she had failed to respond and the pause had gone on too long, his voice popping back into her ear, the tone abrupt and a little bit brisk, as if rushed, and it took him a moment for the humor to catch back up to it.  Something about all of it made her feel as if she had missed something.

“Roadie’d be able to give you an honest answer.  Probably say ‘no’.”  She could hear the way he tried to stifle the giggle, only partially succeeding.  It sounded no less manic despite the lower tone.  “Says I talk in my sleep, too.  Don’t believe a word of it.”  

A quiet laugh escaped her, a huff of air.  The idea of Jamison sleeping anywhere other than slumped over a table in the workshop or forced into a hospital bed was somehow foreign, as if she couldn’t see him simply settling down to comfortably sleep, and instead could only envision him wearing himself out until he simply couldn’t stay awake any longer.  An image of him lying half-curled in bed conjured itself in her head, sleeping peacefully.  Her mind hadn’t known what to dress him in and had helpfully supplied a pair of boxers slung low on his hips and she cursed herself for it and shoved the thought aside, not wanting to risk thinking about any alternatives.  Not now, anyway.  Her mind was wandering.  She reeled it in with a murmured reply, her eyes flitting to the door and the hallway beyond—still empty—before returning to their task.

“I’m inclined to believe him if this mission is any indication.”

A faint snort rang in her ear but the drawl in his voice had returned and the tenor of his voice suggested something casual.  “Well, only one way to find out.” 

The words were in her ear before she was ready for them and she straightened her shoulders, blinking, her body slowly pulling itself straight as she pulled in a slow breath over the response.  She could practically envision him leaning against something, eyebrow raised, lips curled upwards at one side with his teeth peeking from between them in a lazy grin.  He couldn’t have possibly meant it to be one, but it certainly sounded something like an invitation, and a significant part of her quite suddenly suggested that perhaps he very much _had_ meant it that way.

She could feel the heat on her cheeks as she tried to focus on something solid.  Helpfully, her mind recalled the image of him she had just pushed away and placed her inside the picture as well.  Curled at his side, watching him closely, waiting to see if his breathing would be interrupted by… anything.  Small mumbles and snippets of sleepy words, full conversation, possibly even sleepwalking.  She wouldn’t much be surprised.  It was alarming to think about and she shook her head with a breath a bit too loudly into the mic, likely loud enough to be heard.

The sound of him quietly clearing his throat came to her through the communicator, chased quickly after with words that seemed almost to trip over themselves.  “Y’know.  Security cameras.  Don’t have access though, so I guess we gotta ask Winston.”

There was a brush of static and Winston’s voice cut in suddenly, a note lower than usual and mildly irritated.  “We don’t have security cameras.”

She had almost forgotten that he was listening in.

“Well that’s just a major oversight, mate.  Our security’s worse than this place’s.”  Jamison giggled again, more easily it seemed despite his attempt to keep his volume lowered.  It stifled the sound but not the clear amusement underneath it.

Were she in his physical presence she might roll her eyes, fix him with a dry expression, something to discourage him, but as it was her eyes were locked on the files in her hands, her free ear trained towards the emptiness of the building around her, unable to pick up anything but the gentle hum of electric and ventilation systems.  A good sign.

She made a quiet sound in the back of her throat, a gentle ‘Mm.’ of acknowledgment, and murmured a reply meant to excuse herself from the line of questioning.  “I suppose it will have to be a mystery for now.”  She realized too late that the ‘for now’ was questionable, but despite it somehow even just uttering the words helped dispel the image and allowed her to pull her attention back to where it needed to be.  The silence that followed seemed to suggest he had taken the hint and she turned her attention to the computer, narrowing her eyes in focus on the documents on the screen in front of herself.  A file named ‘2076 Grants’ caught her eye—funding, she realized, for the year—and she transferred it to her device quickly for review.  It wouldn’t be wise to open files on the director’s computer.  Too easy to trace.

Jamison’s voice came back over the comms after only a brief pause with an idle tone and a sound in the background lending a rhythm to his words, a gentle _ka-thunk-hiss_ that she assigned to the placement of mines and the occasional low metallic grind that indicated running of wire.  “Roadie did say I tend to hum though.  During a bank job, I think.  Said he’d wring my throat if I didn’t stop, the bloody mug.”

The thought was impossible to shake off and she tried to carefully train her voice into something wry in her response.  She failed.  The attempt to subdue it only served to highlight the bemused chiding in her tone, her voice at a murmur in an attempt to dissuade further conversation, a phrase she realized she’d directed at him before.

“You’re being distracting.”

“Am I?  Christ, I ain’t even tryin’.”  There was a faint tone of self-satisfaction in his voice.  “’s why I’m on this mission though, ain’t it?  Can’t be mad at me for that.”  She could practically hear the grin in his voice.  “Guess it just comes natural.”

She had thought for a moment he might continue, but there was something of a compromise in his tone and the comms went quiet.  It gave her the space she needed to regroup.

She had wandered from the computer towards a bookcase stacked tight with what looked like field notebooks and she was relieved to see that in this, at least, the director seemed to have been more organized.  Each row was jammed with notebooks helpfully labelled along the spine with the location and the year: Morocco, Istanbul, Egypt.  2076.  She plucked the notebook with care from the bookshelf and pulled in a displeased breath at the sand that she could feel against her fingertips, the grit ingrained into the binding and stuck against the pages, shaking the paper gently in an attempt to dislodge additional particles, a faint curse coming from her from the surprise of it.  It took another breath to still herself.

A list of names lined the second page of the notebook, each labelled carefully with a brief description and a contact number, and her eyes pored over them in silence for a moment before they caught on one entry: Miro Hashem – Security.

“Winston?”

The gorilla’s voice returned immediately with another gentle hum of static.  “Here.”

“Does the name ‘Miro Hashem’ sound familiar?”

The pause that followed was brief but felt heavy somehow and she knew he was checking for matches in the system.  The comms just barely picked up the gentle sound of tapping—keystrokes—to confirm, and when his voice returned it was brisk but pleased.  He’d found something in the investigation, no doubt.

“No, but it looks like a good name to know.”

“There’s a number associated with it.  I’ll forward it over.”

“Thank you, Symmetra.  Have you found anything else?”

“Potentially.  Our professor is very disorganized.”  Her eyes swept the room again, running along the haphazard piles of paper on the desk with a slight wince.  It was difficult for her to place things back where she had found them rather than organize them in even the loosest possible definition of order, but the compulsion was manageable. 

“I appreciate you being so thorough.”

The reply was sincere in typical Winston fashion and it warmed her, leaving her with a smile and an eyebrow lofted gently in pleasure. 

“Of course.”

“Junkrat, update?”

“All quiet.”  Jamison didn’t sound particularly thrilled about it, but his voice lilted upwards in a determined good mood as he went on.  “And all set up on my end.  Just waitin’ ‘til we get some company.”

Winston’s voice cut in.  “If.”

“Right, right.”

Satya took a quick photo of the page of the notebook in her hand before flipping through the rest of it, skimming it for any additional information as she spoke in a concession she wasn’t even fully aware she was giving, near-fully engrossed in what she was doing.  “Perhaps if we don’t get any ‘company’ we can utilize some explosives in the training yard.”

“… really?”

The hesitation might have jarred her were she paying more attention, and the seemingly genuine surprise would have been worth investigating, but as it was both things barely registered on her mind.  She continued as she flipped the notebook shut and placed it carefully back on the shelf where it belonged.  “Or you could put your energies towards something less destructive.”

“Hmm…”  The return was slow and thoughtful as if he were working it over in his head and slightly perplexed in a way that made her think the suggestion had caught him off guard, but the eventual response somehow managed to sound both guarded and playful at the same time, dismissive, but not at all unkindly.  It felt like teasing, and she narrowed her eyes at it.  “… not interested.  Sell me on it.”

She squinted thoughtfully to herself as she moved back to the desk, her lips pressed together with the effort.  “Yoga, perhaps?”  Her eyebrow lifted with the words as she made her way to a pile of papers she had not investigated yet.  Her fingers itched to rearrange the clutter and the chatter was actually becoming a welcome distraction.

A high-pitched giggle crackled through the communicator at her ear.  It was a good-natured sound, and the words that followed after were resigned without disappointment, as though he’d been fairly taken in by a good joke.  “A’right, now you’re pullin’ me leg.”

“No.”  The word slipped from her matter-of-factly and with a tone of reassurance she hadn’t even meant to apply.  It was strong and sure of itself and she allowed her voice to flow easily over the words that followed in a calm and straightforward assessment.  “You seem flexible.  Clearly you have the strength.  I believe balance might be the area where you need improvement.  There’s no reason you couldn’t excel.”

He didn’t answer for a long moment so she took the opportunity to go on, returning that teasing tone he’d used on her as she pulled some papers from a stack.  “Would you prefer dance?”  Her lips curled over the words, amused at the thought but also… not opposed.  It was another idea she might have to revisit at a more opportune time.

It was the same pause as before, when she’d asked him if he was ever quiet, and a similar tone but more playful this time.  “Depends.  You gonna be my teacher?” 

She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to answer.  Something in the line of conversation seemed dangerous, but she narrowed her eyes against the idea, flipping another paper over, slowly skimming through the stacks, her eyes flitting quickly across each page.  She didn’t _like_ the feeling and she pushed it aside.  The stubbornness in her response made it sound firm, as if the idea were already decided.  “Naturally.”

“Well that’s a hard offer to refuse.”

“As an instructor, I _do_ demand perfection.”

She could practically hear him backpedaling; nearly inaudible, the sound of a subdued whine came through on the comms before it built up to his voice, quieter than it had been before.  “… can’t we just stick with the bomb idea?”

It felt like a victory and she smirked, one eyebrow raising in self-satisfaction.  “I suppose it’s yoga, then.”

A paper suddenly came up in the pile she was investigating and she stopped, her attention honing in.  A budget, yearly, but with a portion dedicated to the Egypt dig.  As before, there was a line item marked ‘security’ with a dollar amount and then, off to the side in parenthesis, the number zero.  Something about it seemed strange and worth being noted, and though she wasn’t sure what Overwatch had been paid for the job the original dollar amount listed on the paper seemed reasonable enough, possibly a bit high.

A thought occurred to her.

She paused and looked at the tablet Winston had provided her, picking it up and opening the file she had pulled from the director’s computer, ‘Grants 2076’.  It was more or less what she expected: a list of grants the Anthropology Department had received.  Some she recognized—the Vishkar Corporation had applied for many research grants, one or two of which were listed in the file—but some she had never heard of.  Anthropology-specific organizations, she supposed, although Vishkar had scoured all of their options for money from every scientific organization they could shoehorn the scope of their research and training into.  She remembered the bowing and scraping for funding and the sour taste it had left in her mouth, but it was sadly still the way the things worked, even if it was in the name of improving the world for everyone in it.  Her eyes back on the paper, some of the amounts that the department had been awarded seemed too high, particularly for a research institution.  It was worth mentioning.

She didn’t have the time to call for Winston; a shadow moved across the floor of the hallway and she ducked immediately behind the desk, peering out from behind it.  A security guard. 

“Junkrat—”  Her voice hissed gently over the comm system.

There must have been something in her tone, or perhaps he was simply eager for any excuse, but the response was immediate and almost businesslike.

“On it.”

The explosions came in rapid sequence as though they were connected in a series—meant to blow the vault doors off, she realized.  The force of them echoed through the building, made the floor shake, and she held still.  From the hallway she heard a yell of surprise, a loud curse, and the rush of footsteps in the opposite direction and she took in a slow breath, still holding position.  The building’s alarms had kicked off immediately and they rang uncomfortably in her ears as she waited a short while longer before standing slowly, her senses still trained towards the open door as she carefully placed the remaining papers back where they belonged.  She snapped a quick photo of the budget before replacing it where it belonged and tucking the tablet away.

Jamison sounded gleeful over the communicator as his voice rose above the volume of the alarm.  She could hear the sound of voices through his comm system followed by his excited shout.  “Looks like the cavalry’s arrived!  We got guards.  Shut it down!”

She turned off the monitors with a few flicks of her fingers before peering out into the hallway and finding it empty and silent save for the sound ringing through the building.  She started to make her way towards the staircase to the roof.  Even from floors above she could hear the blast of glass shattering and then nothing, not the lob of grenades, not the sound of more mines exploding, not the characteristic laughter echoing down the halls and up the stairwells, not the sound of confused or pursuing voices.  Instead there was a vibration in the air and he was suddenly beside her at the teleporter, holding something in his hand and grinning widely.

It was a mask.  An artifact, clearly, though she had no idea of the importance of it.  It looked old enough that she glanced at him questioningly.

“Got meself a souvenir.  Figure we can put it on the black market, police’ll pick it up in a day, no traces back to us.  Stuff like this has trouble disappearing without the right buyer.”

She looked at him disapprovingly.  “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

A hopeless sort of guilt flickered across his features before he pressed his lips together in a defensive pout, his brow a flat, indignant line above his eyes.  “Only with little things.”  Things that bored him, she was willing to wager.  But he continued, less apologetic.  “I’m s’posed to make it look realistic, aren’t I?”

It was difficult to argue.  She realized something and quickly shut down the teleporter, her voice hushed as she began moving back towards the roof.  “Where are they?  Are they following you?”

He lowered his own voice as well, keeping it that way out of benefit to her more than anything else.  “Down for the count.”  He must have seen her expression—they were security guards, not terrorists—because he went on quickly with his hands lifted to either side in a defensive gesture, the mask waving from side to side in one of them.  “No worries.  Hit ‘em with some of the new mines, seemed like a good experiment.  Modified ‘em a bit before we left.  Might be a couple of broken bones, though.” 

She felt a breath of relief leave her body just as Winston’s voice hit her ear.

“Status report?”

She placed her hand to her ear, pressing both the earpiece and the mic closer in hopes that it might help Winston hear above the sound of the alarms.  “It looks like we’re clear.  We’re headed to the pickup.”

She turned to be sure Jamison was behind her and found him with the mask on his face—enough of a surprise to make her jump.  Her shoulders dropped, hip cocked to the side as she fixed him with a look of exaggerated irritation meant to cover up the breath of air that nearly escaped as a laugh and he lifted his hands in a shrug that seemed to indicate that he didn’t see the issue.  Still, he offered an explanation that seemed a bit undermined by the fact that his tone seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Need me hands free.”

He was, technically, right.  But the mask was surely something important and valuable from a scientific standpoint, so she lifted a finger and pointed at him harshly even as she turned to move up the staircase, eyes narrowed.

“ _Don’t_ drop it.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was in the papers the following morning.

There was no mention of anything other than the vault break-in and the missing mask, no damage, apparently, to anything but the vault itself and surrounding architecture of the first floor.  And though there were injuries, it seemed as though there was nothing life-threatening.  Jamison had opted out of the post-mission briefing once it had been determined that they had done their job successfully.  Knowing the details of what they’d found had apparently not much interested him, although she supposed he’d find it all out later anyway and they _were_ still in the analysis stage.

It had been nearly as successful as it possibly could have been and Winston seemed beyond pleased, particularly with the information she had brought back.   Or pleased with that she had brought it back, at least.  The information itself and the results of what they had uncovered seemed to be more unsettling.

“Looks like we’ve found out why they were so nervous.”  The tone in his voice indicated a grim sort of disappointment as he looked over the documents, nostrils flaring as he pulled in a breath for a deep sigh.  She shifted uncomfortably.  Soothing wasn’t her strong suit and it made her feel awkward and nervous, emotions that manifested in a careful movement from one set of toes to the other.  She pressed on, hoping to stay focused on the mission results, though she did try to keep the edge out of her voice.

“Three of these organizations don’t exist, and the supposed grants they received from them were for far more than is typical.  I’m not sure how exactly they expected to hide the money.”

The gorilla laughed, just once and mostly air, closer to a snort.  “Well, I suppose the director’s expertise _is_ in anthropology, not in money laundering.”

“What are we going to do about them?”

“Report them to the authorities, I suppose.  They’ll likely get hit with something involving tax evasion.  We, uh… don’t exactly have much protection under the law.”

He sounded resigned and strangely disheartened, and she glanced at him from the corner of her eyes with mild concern, but apparently he didn’t feel like wallowing in it for very long as he continued, and she found herself grateful for it.

“But at the very least despite the trap no one was too badly hurt and we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with now.  That’s something to be grateful for.  It’s good indication that we need to be particularly cautious during any missions we accept.” 

“And our ‘Miro Hashem’?”

“We’ll look into it.  The number will get us nowhere, I’m sure, but the name itself is helpful.  Thank you, again.  You and Jamison work well together.”

She looked up to find him peering back at her with a smile of genuine gratitude, but there was something strange underneath it, something in the way he had narrowed one eye as if in thought.  There was nothing solid to put her finger on so she returned both parts of the expression, nodding slowly.  “I’m simply glad to have helped.”

The gorilla nodded as well and returned his attention to the monitors, lifting large hands and tapping at the projected keyboard in an action that she supposed was the preamble to her dismissal.  A smile ghosted over his features as if he were trying to hold the expression back and was failing, and there was something in it that made her suspicious.

“Alright.  You’re free to go.  I believe you have some yoga lessons to get to.”

She had known that he had been on the comms, but it was different to have it acknowledged, and even moreso in person.  It was difficult to pin down why she felt the embarrassment, but she trained her features carefully to something impassive as an eyebrow arched loftily and she took in a breath, the air lending her voice a perfect sense of cool detachment.

“Yes.  I suppose I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Hello, I’m back! I’m definitely a little rusty so I hope this chapter was ok. As always, constructive criticism is welcome, but I think I’m finally getting back in my groove. As it is, I hope you liked it and thank you for waiting!
> 
> Keep in mind Winston had to listen to all of this, pity him.
> 
> Also introducing Jamie 'How Many Suggestions And Innuendos Can I Put In A Conversation Before She Notices' Fawkes
> 
> Get ready for a bit of fluff before Things start to Happen


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> playlist: [pop etc. - vice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIHHetqD9hM) and [alt-j - every other freckle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mhgfXgwdls)

She hadn’t initially intended to pursue the idea of teaching yoga to Jamison so aggressively.  She might not have followed through at all, resigning it to nothing but idle banter, but Winston’s comment had set her ire and it wasn’t very long before she was striding toward the workshop with a confidence at her back that she felt she had been missing for too long.

Both of the Junkers were present when she slipped through the workshop doors and she was glad, in a way, for Roadhog’s presence.  The both of them had immediately looked up, Jamison from the chair where he appeared to be simply lounging and Roadhog from what appeared to be delicate links of chain that he was assembling, far too small to be anything useful to him and for a moment it distracted her from the way her nerves buzzed with a restless energy.  Her steps slowed as the large man lifted a hand away from his work in a simple wave and offered her a low and rumbling, “Hi.”

She returned the gesture wordlessly and paired it with the best smile she could manage, a distracted thing that wasn’t terribly convincing.  Roadhog stared back at her for a second or two, tipped his head slowly to the side at her, and silently returned to his work, adding another link to the chain and moving his fingers toward another.  The puzzling nature of it left her feeling dazed and she hadn’t recovered before Jamison’s voice cut in through her distraction.

 “Well, g’day.”  He, at the very least, sounded at ease and looked the part as well when she turned her eyes to him, sprawled out on the chair with his legs propped up on his workbench and a lazy smile on his face.  “What brings you here?”

She stopped to look at him, taking him in fully despite her better judgment.  He was wearing a shirt for once—a slightly-too-big tank top–his good fingers, black nail polish and all, wrapped around a cup topped with a curly straw, and… his prosthetic hand wedged in one of his traps.  She blinked again and closed her eyes for a moment, briefly not certain she was in reality, but when she opened them he was still there, arm in the trap, aloof as ever.  It was absolutely ridiculous, _he_ was absolutely ridiculous, and she found herself suddenly irrationally angry about it.  She had come to the workshop under her own volition, she should know what to expect by this point, but none of it should have been as endearing as it was and she shouldn’t have to decide between exhaustion and amusement nearly each time she encountered him.

But it was too late for today, and she had had a reason for coming.

“… do you need some help?”  Her tone was weary and her eyes moved pointedly to the hand in the trap and he paused, lips curled around the straw mid-drink, his eyes darting to the thing guiltily with a noncommittal sound welling up from his throat, tinged with nervousness, as if he had been hoping she wouldn’t notice.

Her shoulders lowered and her hip cocked to the side as she brought her hand upwards, one arm akimbo and a look of impatience on her face as she tried again.

“Are you stuck in your own trap.”  It wasn’t really a question; it wasn’t as if she couldn’t tell even just by looking at his expression.

He took another drink, louder and more insistent as he glanced to Roadhog for help, who didn’t even look up from his work.  With no other options he cleared his throat and mumbled a reply.

“Might’ve slipped a bit.”

“A bit.”

“Well… enough.”  The metal fingers twitched and rolled in sequence, clearly still fully functional despite their position, and he pulled the straw away from his lips and gestured hesitantly toward the trap with the cup with a tone that started as something embarrassed.  “Hard to get it off with one hand, might’ve helped if I had another foot.”  She looked down and could see where he had prodded at his shoe with the peg leg and not managed to remove the boot, ostensibly unwilling to put his drink down to make the attempt.

His tone quickly shifted to a defensive kind of pride.  “That’s a sign of quality workmanship, though.”

She sighed and moved closer with a glance of admonishment shot towards the large Junker that went entirely missed.  “And Roadhog wouldn’t help?”

“Said I deserved what I got.”  Jamison’s lips pressed together in a sour look as he glanced towards Roadhog as well, muttering under his breath.  “Bloody fantastic bodyguard.”

The look she gave him was absolutely withering.  “I suppose you don’t pay him to enough protect you from yourself.”

She was already examining the trigger and locking mechanisms intently, taking in the design of it quickly.  It was simple enough once she understood them to pull the lock though it did take some force and the trap sprang back open, freeing Jamison’s arm, which he immediately pulled back to himself and stood, wriggling the metal fingers experimentally, found everything working to his satisfaction, and fixed her with a bright-eyed and beaming smile.

“Thanks.  Could’ve been in there all day.” 

It was difficult to tell if it was a joke or not.  He took a step closer and pressed the palm of his prosthetic arm down against the workbench beside her, his body adopting a casual lean that brought him closer to her.  She fixed him with a hard stare as she attempted to regroup and remember why she had come in the first place but her thoughts were disrupted by the sound of Roadhog getting to his feet with a low sound from his chest and her eyes darted to him, Jamison’s following suit as though he had forgotten the larger Junker was there. 

She watched him, puzzled, as he moved towards the door and she took a breath with the intent of saying something even if she wasn’t sure what, but within a few seconds he was simply gone, leaving both her and Jamison staring blankly towards the door.

Being alone with him made her feel off-balance and it was small comfort that it seemed to affect him as well, the change visible in the scant inches he drew away from her and the way his eyes darted to the sides before returning to her, the grin he’d adopted developing undercurrents of uncertainty.  It was something she could feel in herself as well and she intensely disliked it, pushing it stubbornly down, willing herself to regain her control.  He recuperated faster than she did.

“So.  What’re you up to?”

Her eyes focused on him, one eyebrow slowly raising in a high arch as she looked at him dryly.  Her tongue rolled over the syllables slowly despite her impatience to bring up the reason she had come, the words out of her before she could refocus her attention to the task at hand.  “Saving you, apparently.”

The grin he wore widened and put his features at ease, leaving him to look distinctly pleased, though she wasn’t sure who or what it was directed towards.  “Nothin’ new, then.” 

He had been working on something before he’d gotten stuck in the trap it seemed, apparent by the fact that he was far from clean.  Being so close she could see how soot had worked its way into the cracks of his hands, the marks at the side of his nose where he’d rubbed it, small stripes and spots apparent on his skin in solidarity with the freckles on his shoulders and complex spirals on the where he’d placed his fingers, each touch leaving prints behind.  For whatever reason it was difficult to look away.  She remembered the marks on her uniform and took a slow, grounding breath, regaining her purpose by recalling Winston’s gentle teasing and she fixed her eyes on him, speaking more firmly than she meant to.

“Are you ready for the lesson?”

He seemed to have noticed the change in her tone; he blinked as he looked at her with an obvious confusion on his face—one eye narrowed while the other widened under a lightly furrowed brow—and his lips parted for a moment before his tongue flicked nervously across them.  He snapped his jaw shut for an awkward smile that seemed both tenuous and embarrassed.

“… lesson?”

“Yoga.”  Her voice clipped over the syllables, emphasizing them a bit too much.  She caught it and closed her eyes for a moment to accommodate a small sigh before looking back to him with less intensity.  “The lessons we spoke about.”

 “Oh.”  Genuine surprise bled into his voice as he fixed her with a puzzled look and raised a hand to pull through his hair in a gesture that seemed guilty and didn’t seem to belong.  The motion pulled him upright and left him standing straight, the prosthetic arm leaving the workbench and putting more distance between them. 

“Right.  I, uh.  Kinda thought you were jokin’, to be honest.”

Her eyes narrowed gently in appraisal as she peered at him.  “I thought we agreed.”

He took in a breath and held it as he looked at her, pressing his lips together in a lopsided expression as he glanced her over, investigating for signs of insincerity.  He seemed to find none and went on in a nervous-sounding chatter, too fast and paired with a small grin that also seemed out of place.  His eyes were intent on her and each word carefully chosen as if he were concerned that he might be misunderstood.  “Just… sometimes people don’t mean things they do.” 

It felt distinctly as though he wasn’t referring only to her suggestion of teaching him.  She could feel something tighten in her chest as he looked at her but there was no accusation in it; in fact, he’d said it almost cringingly.  The thought occurred to her that rather than being worried about being misunderstood he might be concerned that she would understand perfectly and a frustration welled up in her that she hadn’t at all.

He paused before visibly biting his tongue and quickly lowering his lips over it as if to cover up the evidence of whatever he’d decided to leave unsaid, watching her in silence until it was broken when he shifted his eyes to the side, cleared his throat with a nervous giggle following after to try to dispel any connection he thought she had made, and he pulled himself upwards, standing straight with a one-armed shrug and a clumsily-applied cheerfulness to his voice as though he were trying to shove the uneasiness out of the room for sheer force of will.  “Sorry, you’re kinda catchin’ me by surprise here.”

Her lashes fluttered uneasily as the world outside of her thoughts returned and she shook her head to try to resume her focus a bit too harshly and without much success before she could give him enough of her attention to even attempt a suitable reply.  “If you’re not interested…”  It didn’t feel like quite the right words but following through with the lesson, however inconsequential it might be, was something she _could_ do.

His posture jumped as he lifted his hands immediately to either side of himself, waving them defensively, the gesture quick and appeasing.  “Oi hang on a tic, I didn’t say that!”  He looked at her, expression torn before he tipped his head to the side inquisitively.  “I’m interested, for deffo.”  The change in tone was abrupt halfway through, his voice lowering subtly as his lips curled from their concerned curve to a grin as it nipped at the end of the sentence.  She eyed it suspiciously.

“Alright.  Then we’ll meet in the training yard.”

One of his eyes narrowed as he glanced around the room before looking back at her.  “What, right now?”

Perhaps she had been a bit overzealous in her approach.  Her posture relaxed, something she had to force but felt better about once she had done it.  “I suppose it might be best to wait until this evening when the training yard is more likely to be vacant.”  After a moment of considering him she tipped her chin back, indicating his clothing.  “You’ll need to wear different clothes.”

He sounded indignant as he responded but the tone was laced with a subtle whine.  “What’s wrong with these?”

“They’re filthy, as are you.”

A tip of his head facilitated a slow grin that grew into something broad and full of self-satisfaction.  “Don’t see why that’s a problem.”  It twisted into something sly and sharp-toothed as he went on.  “‘sides, bein’ filthy ain’t that bad, is it?”

“ _It is a problem._ ”  Her voice lowered but gave emphasis to each word.  It took some effort, but she trained her tone to something patient but withering, exaggerated it in mimicry of his own frequent tactic, something she had noticed was intended to lessen any potential sting.  “And it’s necessary for you to wear something that doesn’t restrict motion.  Take some sweatpants from the medical bay.”

He stared at her for a moment stubbornly, and though it looked like he was about to offer another statement of protest he pushed a loud breath out through his nostrils before his shoulders slumped in defeat.  “A’right a’right.  Makin’ me regret it already.”  But he moved around her to Roadhog’s vacant workbench without turning his back, his hands lifted again in appeasement as the broad grin returned to his face.  “Kiddin’!  Couldn’t keep me away if ya tried.”

She had her doubts but he snagged a wrench from the table and circled back around her, slipping by her closely and her eyes followed them until they couldn’t do so without her turning her body, returning to him once he was back in her peripheral vision.

Despite his earlier comment he had fixed a smile on her as he bounced on the tip of his foot while he continued around her and back to his seat, hesitating there rather than sitting down and leaning against the back of it instead in a careless pose even as he continued to look at her.  Her eyes dropped briefly to the floor before they returned to him and she developed a small smile of her own.  Perhaps regardless of whatever misstep she had made it would all be okay.

In a way that seemed more like his habits than her own she lifted her hand in a wave as she began backing towards the door so that she could keep her eyes on him.

“Alright.  I’ll see you then.”

His expression seemed brighter as he slowly pushed himself up off of the chair and lifted his hand in a wave in return.

“Yeah.  See you then.” 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She was already in the training yard by the time Jamison finally appeared looking distinctly uncomfortable in the pair of sweatpants she had suggested, the grey fabric hitched up on his right leg to end just above the prosthetic, the hips of the garment to her eternal distraction hanging precariously low as his clothing always seemed to be.  She wished the word ‘displeasure’ applied, but if she were being honest with herself she would have to admit it was far from the mark.  She could only pray that he had tied the drawstring, although in fairness she supposed getting anything to stay on his lanky form was an achievement. 

He had showered and his hair laid slightly farther back than she was used to, the blonde hue showing clearly with the lack of soot to muddy the color.  He ran his hand back through the stark widow’s peak in a gesture that seemed to match his apparent discomfort, smoothing the strands further, the fingers of the prosthetic hand tucked carefully in the pocket at his side.  She’d forgotten to add the stipulation that he should shower before they met.  She was pleased to see the idea had occurred to him on his own… or perhaps, the idle thought came to her, with the help of Roadhog.  She’d begun developing a suspicion that Roadhog had offered a myriad of suggestions. 

The yard was empty and quiet with a cool breeze caressing the grass as it moved up and over the cliff to the sea and the sun hung low in the sky.  She had chosen a spot that was relatively untouched—no divots in the grass, no scorched marks, and a view out over the water that allowed her a sense of remoteness so long as she kept her gaze forward.  The training bots had been shut down for the night and without the gentle whirr of their engines it was easy to allow oneself to forget where they were so long as their focus remained in the right place.

She had tied her hair back in a long ponytail in preparation for the activity; it ended at the small of her back, a cutoff shirt hugging her torso above a pair of form-fitting yoga pants.  In contrast to his apparent discomfort she clearly felt at home and in her element and it showed in the way she held herself.  This was her territory.  Battle was no longer uncomfortable to her, but this was one of the things that grounded her and made her feel solid, the surety of her feet and the awareness of each of her muscles lending her a certainty she did not always otherwise feel. 

His uneven steps slowed and his expression went blank as he stood up a bit straighter, watching her.  It took him a moment to recover from whatever it was but his lips curled upwards in a grin that didn’t seem entirely sure of itself as he resumed his earlier uneven pace toward her, closing the gap while lacing his fingers together and pushing his palms outward to crack the knuckles of his left hand, rolling his neck to either side and prompting similar pops from his spine and eyes half-lidded in a languid and confident expression.

“I hope you’re prepared to witness my full athletic prowess.”  His tone verged on melodic, bombastic, and the longer he wore the grin the more natural it seemed.  By the time he was finished with the sentence it was full and beaming.  He leaned his weight back on the heel of his foot and raised his hands to either side of himself palms out with eyebrows raised loftily and his tone pitched to match.  “I should warn you in advance, it’s natural to have feelings of inadequacy once you’ve seen it in action, so don’t be alarmed.” 

She tried not to reward him with a smile but it felt impossible.  At the very least she caught it and subdued it to the best of her abilities, attempting to make it look more wry and less amused and probably failing.  At least she’d managed not to laugh.

“Perhaps I made a mistake in offering to teach you.  It would be embarrassing to be beaten at my own game.”

His hands came to rest on his hips as he looked at her with his full attention, his expression smoothing into a simple smile below brightly-lit amber eyes.  After a beat he tipped his head to the side, lowering his chin in a gracious nod.  “No worries, I’ll go easy on ya, make it look hard an’ all that.  Boost your confidence.”

The smile was incredulous as it spread across her features, parted lips and a jaw a bit lax to accommodate the single, faint laugh that escaped her.  It was a challenge, then.  She turned abruptly on her heel and moved with grace toward the mat she had placed down, unnecessary perhaps but something she suspected he might need to offer every inch of grip for his foot, intending for him to follow.  The amusement had loosened her mood and had the same effect on the way she walked as she looked over her shoulder at him expectantly.

He was clearly caught off-guard by something but when she looked back at him he immediately pulled himself back together, the prosthetic fingers fidgeting as he bounced once or twice on the peg leg and followed after with resumed energy.  She thought she could see the faintest hints of a tension in the way the muscles of his jaw worked but it dissipated quickly as he came up beside her.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“Well, we will start simply and go on from there.  I will adjust the poses based on your performance.”  Her tone was matter-of-fact and the shrug she rolled over her shoulders was casual and dual-purposed, meant both to brush him off in a good-humored gesture and to loosen her muscles.  He noticed and returned the look of amused incredulity before snapping his jaw shut and narrowing his eyes gently, his lips curling upward at one corner but pressed tightly together in a devious expression.  It seemed the challenge had been accepted.

“A’right.  Let’s get started.”

  

* * *

 

 

Things had gone well enough at the start—simple standing poses that stretched the back, kept the body facing forwards, chosen specifically so that his prosthetic arm and leg wouldn’t offset his balance.  She had expected him to do well with them and he had, responding to her suggestions for adjustments and stretching the way he should, but she noticed each time she glanced sidelong towards him that he was fidgeting, his fingers flexing and contracting and his eyes wide and distracted, pointed off into the distance or narrowed at the grass whenever he thought she wasn’t looking, an energy coiled in the muscles of his back that didn’t seem to be going away.

She was used to the activity being soothing.  It didn’t seem to be having the same effect on him.

It was hard not to feel offended and for a moment she was before she closed her eyes, concentrating on her own body and breathing, and opened them with a calm sort of clarity.  It was nothing personal and certainly not dismissive of her guidance, she was sure of it.  Even as reluctant as he had seemed to be both while they were on the mission and more subtly in the workshop he _had_ come with her, and each time she showed him a pose and led him in how to properly arrange himself he managed to snap himself back into focus, only slipping once he thought her eyes were off of him.

Every angle of logic suggested to her that he was trying.  She just wasn’t sure why it wasn’t working.  Maybe, she thought, a different approach would help.

She pulled herself straight and stifled a sigh as she looked at him thoughtfully, he himself apparently too lost in some thought of his own to notice.  So she cleared her throat gently to get his attention, and his body jerked taut at the sudden interruption and sent him standing bolt upright with a vague sort of guilt laced into his features as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t.  It was curious.  But further evidence of his sincerity.

Maybe a more challenging endeavor would help.

“Perhaps we ought to move on to something else.”

She could see an exhausted sort of relief lurking in the shadows of his eyes but the way his fingers twitched seemed a bit nervous.  Still, he curled his lips upward in a grin that she thought was meant to be enthusiastically agreeable.  It failed to hit the mark as he bounced restlessly on his heel.  “Primed and ready.”

She swept her foot out in one fluid motion and arranged herself in the warrior pose, her feet far from and in line with one another as if in an extended lunge, her gaze forward at the tips of her fingers where they were raised nearly to eye level in front of herself, her other arm mirroring the position pointing away from her body on the other side, and she glanced toward him in a silent prompt to follow suit.

It wasn’t a particularly difficult pose, or at least she hadn’t thought it would be, but it became apparent rather quickly that the addition of his prosthetic leg was causing… problems.  His attempts to mimic her were unsteady from the start and resulted in quite a few near-misses in which he barely kept himself from falling over, but the challenge of it at the very least seemed to be keeping his attention and he punctuated the attempts with snippets of intermittent commentary that sounded relieved to have something to occupy himself with.

She couldn’t help but smile to herself as she looked over the positioning of her own feet before looking to his, still not in alignment.  But he was clearly concentrating if the tip of his tongue, protruding from between his lips and wedged between his teeth, was any indication.  It was one thing that seemed like an easy fix.  She broke her pose.  He looked up questioningly as she took a few steps closer.

“Tongue in your mouth, please, or you might lose it.”

“Ooh, that wouldn’t be good.  You never know when that’’ll come in handy.”

She looked up and found him smiling toothily, the tongue still rebelliously curled around the tip of one sharp canine tooth, a lazy-looking expression that he wielded stubbornly against her own serious one.  The way he’d said it suddenly jarred her and she eyed him curiously, considering the words.  It meant something more than it seemed and she was beginning to think she knew what it was, however much she didn’t trust herself to.  Her mind recalled the way his tongue moved ponderously over his lips when he was nervous and her eyes flitted first to his own and then to his tongue before she pushed the though aside and drifted in front of him to better fix him with a carefully narrowed gaze.

 “You find a use for it _constantly_ , by the sound of it.”

“Trust me, could be more.”

She knew the tone; it was the same one he’d used on their mission together, if a bit more subdued, low and hoarse.  It was worse when he was standing right there and she had a sudden inkling of what it might mean.  Her breath hitched in her chest before she had a chance to fully catch the thought and she ignored it with force, instead fighting the sensation by lifting a hand to press against the underside of his chin with two fingers, pushing his jaw gently but firmly shut in an indication that he would be wise to follow her advice.  If the hint was there that he should perhaps stop talking as well, all the better; his tone was distracting and she’d started the entire day with a goal in mind and was determined to achieve it.

He went silent and she noted with a tug of relief at the back of her mind, taking some pleasure in the way that he looked at her with clear surprise at the touch and the faintest traces of confusion tracing furrows on his brow. 

She faced him and paused, and looking over his pose carefully.  It was still sloppy when he managed to hold it for more than a few seconds.  It held promise though and she considered him, eyeing his prosthetic leg thoughtfully.  She might need to make accommodations.  Properly distributing the rest of his weight seemed to be providing a greater challenge than she had expected. 

She withdrew smoothly and moved to his side, her body positioned slightly in front of his own so that he could better see, and struck the pose once more, her fingers outstretched in front and behind herself and her feet firm on the ground.

“Chin forward, heels in line with one-another, weight on the balls of your feet.”  She paused as she glanced toward his prosthetic leg and allowed her mind the distraction of finding an alternate explanation, softening her voice as she glanced from the placement of his foot and peg leg up to his face.  “Legs nearly in line with one-another, though not quite.  You should feel it in your thighs.”

He attempted to make the adjustments but immediately lost his balance and must have noticed her appraising expression because he tried again without so much as pausing, looking from her feet to his own and shuffling it closer in line with his body but it upset his equilibrium and brought his body darting straight with his arms lifted at either side of him to try to regain it.  It took him three more tries to even stand up straight without looking as if falling over was imminent and even then he was too unsteady to hold it for more than a few seconds.

The more he tried the more it was apparent that it was not treating him well; a resigned kind of misery was beginning to creep into his expression and she’d noticed the occasional small sound of frustration he didn’t manage to stifle, growing in frequency.  The earlier amusement she had felt was rapidly dissipating.

His voice was a mixture of hopelessness and apology as he allowed his hands to drop and his shoulders to slump, shifting the prosthetic leg outwards to try to regain his balance but still swaying for a moment in failure before he managed to stabilize himself.

“Look, Satya, I dunno if—”

“Here.”  She interrupted him, the single word firm but gentle as it escaped her.  She withdrew from her place abruptly and swept first around his side, nudging the end of his prosthetic leg back where it should be with her foot, and then moved behind him, her eyes on her intended targets in sequence as she identified where his posture was insufficient: shoulders, lower back, hips.  She was not interested in failing here, not in something that was so important to her.

His eyes tried to follow her as she moved but she noted the shift of his body and looked up with one eyebrow raised in wordless admonishment, lifted a hand to his chin, and silently turned his head back to where it belonged, forward-facing, noting the astonished blink he offered to the empty space in front of himself as though he weren’t certain what had just happened. 

Her hand found one of his shoulders, the gauntlet found the other, and she could feel his body stiffen in a strange kind of apprehension under her palms.

“Shoulders up.”

He complied with the order in silence, allowing himself to be arranged and, making hesitant shifts of his own to be guided by her hands until his shoulders were in the right position.  Her right hand drifted down his spine and she pressed in, punctuating the gentle pressure with another, somewhat softer command.

“Back straight.”

His attempt to accommodate it had the effect of shifting his weight in his hips as well and her lips pursed together as she paused to assess the situation.  A cautious glance upwards from below her lashes proved that he was still looking forward as directed and she breathed him in, an unintentional result of her need to stabilize herself.  She considered him in silence, her attention drifting and her movements slowing, thoughts no longer constrained merely to the position of his limbs and torso. She couldn’t ignore her right hand against the skin of his back or the warmth of his skin under her palm and she released the breath silently and carefully, suddenly very aware of the closeness of him.  The opportunity was there and she had trouble resisting it; her eyes followed the contours of his face from the safety beyond his peripheral vision, the lesson brushed aside for a moment despite her mind’s stubborn insistence to regain focus and she followed the line of his neck to his collar bone, the freckles along the curve of his shoulders.  His shallow breath.  The rapidly intensifying pink hue of the tips of his ears. 

She hesitated, her fingers attempting to curl against his skin before she pulled her palm back an inch, a meager amount of space that she was surprised to realize how much she needed.

She’d let her thoughts stray too long and too deeply into a tenuous place.  Her hand returned to its firm pressure against his back, the gauntlet at his shoulder resuming its grip there as well.

Perhaps it wasn’t so terrible.  Perhaps the fact that she was enjoying his presence—and his closeness, his warmth, the feel of him—was simply her being concerned over nothing.  Or perhaps it was bigger than she thought, and it no longer felt as dangerous as it should. 

Perhaps now wasn’t the time to be thinking about it.

She shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts and returned a bit reluctantly to the task at hand.  The solution to the problem required a resolve that for a moment she wasn’t certain she had but she shifted the gauntlet from his shoulder to his hip, the movement cautious and deliberate but not without room for disagreement, and she curled her fingers there as she moved a bit closer to slip her hand around his body from behind, her palm resting low against the flat of his stomach to pull him back towards herself, the gauntlet at his hip pressing downwards simultaneously in an effort to align them while straightening his back, close enough that her body pressed against his.

“Hips level.”

She couldn’t have kept the softness out of her voice if she had tried.

A quiet grunt escaped him as she adjusted his body to the correct position and she could feel the way the muscles of his stomach tensed under her hand.  But she didn’t move away, not immediately.  She wanted him to feel stable first, a fact that she told herself before her mind insisted on bringing her attention to the light feeling in her stomach and the quickness of her breath and the way her fingers splayed against his skin as if trying to explore more of it.  She slipped them away a bit too long after he seemed to have found his equilibrium and withdrew slowly to his side, eyeing his features carefully.  His cheeks were flushed and his chest rose and fell in shallow breaths but he was looking resolutely forward, either determined to hold the pose or too terrified to lose it.  Something about his expression seemed to suggest the latter.

But he was still and seemed to be focused without any further fidgeting, regardless of what he was focused _on_.  That had to be an improvement.  The terseness of his body wasn’t ideal but it would work for the time being.  Her tone was more hesitant than she would have liked.  She could still feel the heat of him on her palm.

“Better?”

His voice escaped him as a low mutter that she wasn’t certain was meant to be heard.  “What definition are we usin’?”  His adams apple bobbed as he swallowed uneasily and cleared his throat before trying again, more naturally.  “Dunno.  You tell me.”

“Very much so.”  She noted the key points of his position and her eyes caught on one final issue.  “One minor thing...”

She moved in towards him again, her body facing his own, her gaze pointed carefully to his body rather than his face, and lifted her hand carefully, pressed it against his bicep before realizing the touch wasn’t necessary to fix his posture, and immediately moved hastily to trace it along the length of his arm as she raised it slightly higher, pointing it in front of himself to complete the pose.  She hadn’t needed to prolong the touch quite as much as she had, but she told herself that she hadn’t meant to do it.  It _did_ help to steady him as he distributed the weight of his prosthetic arm and she refused to acknowledge the fact as a rationalization.

She glanced up toward his expression—still wide-eyed and with a glance towards her that corrected almost too quickly for her to notice—and for a moment she had the terrifying thought that he knew.

He seemed out of breath. 

She lifted a hand to tuck strands of hair behind her ear as she watched him, mostly to find something to do with her hands.  He still seemed unsteady, but his form was correct and she latched onto the satisfaction she felt as a desperate distraction.  There was no purpose to looking at him so closely anymore, or at least, nothing to do with the lesson.  She was interrupted from her thoughts, probably for the better.

“… can I stop now?”

“Oh.”  The sound came out of her hurriedly and the words followed quickly, nearly tripping over one-another.  “Yes, sorry.”

He immediately shifted the prosthetic leg outward—his weight clearly favoring his good leg—and sighed a breath of relief, slumping forward.  The misery that had haunted him at least was gone, although he had returned to a state that seemed dazed—twitchy and unfocused.  Getting rid of his frustration, however, was an admittedly small success.  She’d take it.  She took a breath, attempting to think of something to bring his mind fully back to the exercise.

“You’re doing very well.”

He emitted a nervous, flustered-sounding laugh as though he didn’t know what to do with the comment, the flush extending to his cheeks.

“Now you’re just bein’ nice.”

It had been nearly a half hour which felt like very little to her but seemed from her observations as though it had been an eternity for him.  It might be better to quit while she was ahead.  The sun had begun its descent into the horizon and it seemed like an appropriate time to stop but she found herself unwilling to end it just yet.  She found her voice again, her fingers lacing with those of the gauntlet in a bit of uncertainty. 

“What if we tried just one more thing?  Something advanced.”

“Ad _vanced_.”  His eyes darted to her and the look of horror that spread across his features was almost comical. 

An airy breath was forced from her with just enough sound to be considered a laugh.  Letting it escape was a relief and released some of the tension she didn’t know had been building in her chest, a fact she held onto as he went on. 

“I dunno if you noticed but the last one wasn’t exactly stellar.  Startin’ to think you might _want_ me to lose my tongue.”

She lowered her head with a smile, eyes briefly slipping closed as she attempted to find the words she was looking for.  “Advanced, but perhaps more applicable to your abilities.”  Her tone was reassuring as she raised her arms above her head in a movement meant to stretch her spine in preparation.  “ _And_ more challenging, which seems to better suit you.”  He was watching her closely with a half-lidded gaze and he failed to look away even when she glanced at him, a moment passing before he blinked heavily and his eyes abruptly flitted elsewhere.

There had to be something in it.  There definitely was.  She could feel a heat growing on her cheeks and she lifted a hand to her hair once again as she looked away as well.  Her voice escaped as a low murmur as she moved back to the mat and glanced to the side at him, regretting it instantly as she caught his eyes again, blinking and returning her gaze to the mat to focus on her purpose.

“It’s called the scorpion pose.”

She could hear the partially strangled a groan of dismay that escaped his throat and envisioned him shuddering with the sound.  “That ain’t exactly a reassuring name.”

She nearly laughed again, her breath escaping quietly.  “You don’t have to try it, but you may like it.” 

She dropped down and allowed herself to settle into the beginning of the pose, feeling her forearm and the gauntlet firm against the floor from the elbow down, rooting her, her eyes drifting closed as she focused on her breath and the deep, steady beat of her heart.  Her feet lifted from the floor slowly and carefully, the movement controlled and deliberate as her back arched forwards above her shoulders.  It was an extreme pose, she realized, but once she had trained her body it had no longer felt like it.  Instead it was a gateway to a unique sort of bliss, calm and quiet, comfortable and familiar but fully aware of her own body all the same.  It made her feel at one in her own skin and grounded her more deeply than any simple breathing exercise ever could. 

She had allowed herself to indulge in the pose for too long and she opened her eyes slowly to find him staring at her in absolute stillness.  He didn’t look away.  She did first, lowering her eyes to the ground in front of herself as an excuse before her body flexed, a small sound of effort escaping her as her legs swept upwards slowly and she uncurled, her feet finding purchase on the floor in a controlled movement that allowed her to land softly.

It took him a moment to form words.  He had trained himself to look at her dryly.  “Ya wanna see me hurt myself that badly, huh.”

She raised an eyebrow at him with an expression that matched his.  “You do a good enough job of that on your own.” 

He huffed a loud breath and looked dubious but approached slowly, muttering as he settled over the mat and dropped down.  She wasn’t sure how much of the agitation was real and how much was simply exaggerated for effect. 

“I dunno what I did to deserve this.”  He paused.  “… I mean, I’ve done a lot of things, but this seems unfair.”  He wasn’t even in the pose yet.

He set his elbows down on the ground and uncertainly pushed upward with his feet to bring his legs off of the mat, not enough the first time or the second and too far on the third, causing him to tip over backwards and leaving him sprawled on the mat, wide-eyed.  Her worry that it may have the same result as the last pose waned as he immediately rolled over and began to try again with a determination he hadn’t had before.  It wasn’t long until his feet were up in the air, not quite situated as they should be, but there all the same, his back arched and a look of intense concentration on his face as his foot twitched periodically to help him keep his balance.  She watched him with eyes widened as if attempting to take in all of it.  It was impressive.  She wasn’t certain if she had expected him to actually do it.  It took her a moment to realize he might need some guidance.

“Relax.”

A strained grunt escaped him as his foot twitched in the air and he wheezed as his fingers attempted to curl against the mat, finding nothing to hold onto.

“Think if I do that I’ll fall over.”

“Fair enough, for now.  But you do have to remember to breathe.” 

Technically he took her advice in the form of one long breath sucked in and released before going right back to holding it again.  She couldn’t help the amused smile and she seated herself slowly on the mat so that she could better see his face.  Her head tipped to the side as she considered him, an eyebrow raising slyly.

“Do you feel more attuned with yourself?”

He pursed his lips together.  “Feelin’ pretty attuned with this grass.  Kinda feel bad for blowin’ it up all the time.”

She laughed and settled into a smile, feeling more at ease with him speaking freely again.  His silences so often seemed to indicate that something was wrong, that she had missed a cue, or both.

“If it’s the only thing you’ve learned today I suppose it will have to do.”

“I’ve learned you like trickin’ people into torturing themselves.”

He tried glancing towards her and it was nearly enough to make him lose his balance, his eyes shot wide as he looked back down to the ground in front of himself and tensed his legs until his equilibrium was regained.

Her smile softened as she watched him and she lowered her voice with the words.  “You _are_ doing well, you know.”

He offered her another unenthused grunt and tried to readjust his arms without any success and his voice left him with a strained wheeze.  “Well that’s good to hear because I think I’m stuck.”

Another laugh escaped from her, a quiet thing from between closed lips and she rolled to her knees, lifting a hand to press fingers delicately against the tip of his prosthetic leg, pushing it upwards to help him redistribute his weight until he could get his feet back on the ground.  He exited the pose with an ‘oof’ of effort and immediately stood up, rolling his shoulders and pressing his chest out to relieve the tightness of his muscles. 

“Ta.”

“You’re quite welcome, considering I got you into trouble in the first place.”

He shook himself out with a slowly widening grin.  “I’ve been in worse.  Usually involves more bullets, though.  Lucky you’re usually there for those, too.”

They stared at each other for a moment before he looked away abruptly, turning his body to the side and speaking too quickly as though he had just hit upon an idea and immediately translated it to words out of the need to say something.  Anything.

“How about I teach you one?  Seems only fair.”

She had no idea what to expect, but she was sure it wouldn’t be yoga.  He prefaced it with a grin growing in cofidence, his eyebrows raised and a metal finger briefly lifted to emphasize the point.

“This one’s a Junkrat original.”

There was only a moment when he prepared himself by taking a deep breath and then he threw his body forward with a grunt, his hands hitting the ground and his legs tipping up over his head as he pushed himself upward and flung himself into an unsteady handstand.  She watched the look of focus on his face, his eyes on the grass as he took a few careful steps with his hands and then, with apparent effort, lifted the prosthetic off of the ground to leave the entirety of his weight on his good arm.  The muscles of his shoulders and sides flexed as he struggled to maintain the pose, his body shifting to accommodate the change in weight distribution.  Too much, in fact.  His eyes, narrowed in concentration, widened slowly as he began to lose his balance catastrophically.

She almost stepped forward despite knowing she would be too late but as he tipped over he twisted his body and landed on his side with a quiet ‘oof’ as some of his breath was forced out of him.  She winced.  Somehow he had managed to land in a pose with his hand propping up his head, the prosthetic leg bent upwards, the metal arm draped over his side and the fingers on the ground casually in a way that seemed practically idle.  As if he’d intended to end up lounging against the grass.

She laughed, just twice, but for the first time without even trying to smother it in concern for appearances.  It was a rare and melodic thing and she pulled her hands upwards with fingers curled, repeating the wince for effect as she looked at him closely.

“… are you alright?”

His breath was a bit heavy but the grin remained stubbornly on his face and she could swear it gained something more _real_ when she laughed, more genuine somehow.

“All part of the plan.  I told you, Junkrat original.”

She pulled herself together with a loud sigh that was belied by the faint curve of her lips.  She couldn’t manage to make it sound as exhausted as she would like, but she succeeded in giving it a slightly wry edge as she stepped forward and extended a hand gently for him to take.  “Come on.  We should stretch before we finish.”

 

* * *

 

They sat on the mat, side by side, both facing resolutely forwards toward the overlook of the ocean and the brilliant pink and orange from the setting sun with their legs curled in front of themselves.  The bottoms of Satya’s feet were pressed together while Jamison’s foot rested against the bottom of his peg leg.  She wasn’t sure if the pose did much for him with his prosthetic, but it seemed worth trying, and the truth was she might have needed to catch her breath herself.

He cleared his throat.

“Where’d ya learn all of this stuff anyway?”  His voice cut in through the quiet and she glanced towards him slowly.  Her nerves had calmed, though she wasn’t certain his had done the same given the way his fingers fidgeted against his ankle and the rubber pads on the metal fingers of his prosthetic arm tapped in a quiet rapid rhythm against the prosthetic leg.

“Vishkar.  It was indispensable for clearing the mind.”   _Her_ mind, at least.  The insinuation was there and she left the clarification unsaid.

“Ah.” 

She noted the change in tone and looked at him immediately, sidelong, her brow knitted in gentle concern as she attempted to puzzle it out.  His features were no help; his expression hadn’t changed.  But whatever it was it had not sounded good.  She tried again, hoping further explanation might soothe the effect of whatever it was that she had said.

“Although some of it was from… before.”  Her eyes returned forward and she stared blankly, lost for a moment before she continued hesitantly on.  “It was necessary to find a source of stability.”  She wasn’t interested in getting into her past; it was a line of thought that brought her very little comfort and she glanced towards him, hoping it would be enough.

He sat there silently for a moment or two with his eyes still facing the sea before he pursed his lips and swayed toward her a few inches, his eyes shifting in her direction as he did so and an agreeable and toothy smile on his face.  “Not much of that in the Outback.  It’s an, uh…”  His eyes circled up towards the sky as he tried to find the words.  “Interestin’ place nowadays.”  The look turned thoughtful as he dropped his voice with a seemingly uncaring shrug.  “All the radiation probably doesn’t help.”

There was no self-pity in it, in fact the primary emotion in his voice seemed to be something upbeat.  She thought she could see something less carefree, buried deep and noticeable only because of the curve of his lips, but it was difficult to tell.

“And that’s why you left?”

“Not… exactly…”  He raised his hand and rubbed the back of his neck.  “Got some unwanted attention from the wrong kinda people.  Reckoned it’d be better if Hog and me got outta dodge.”

“One would think you would lie low rather than becoming an internationally-known criminal.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a freedom fighter, albeit a misunderstood one.”

There was a note of self-satisfaction and pride in his voice and she couldn’t quite tell if he was being sincere or not… or whether it applied to being called a criminal or a supposed freedom fighter.  But it made her suddenly uncomfortable, given the situation with Vishkar.  Given Rio, the favelas, the people’s revolt.  After a short pause she changed the topic with a deep breath and without any form of subtlety.

“Perhaps next time we can try without the arm.  Certain poses would likely be much easier without your prosthetics.”

He let the previous topic slip into obscurity without any apparent issue as he glanced towards her. 

“Next time, huh?”  There was a look of uncertainty to him before he reigned it in with a slowly curling grin that was very pleased with itself, and for once didn’t seem to have anything hidden underneath it, his chest puffed out and his eyebrows arching upwards languidly as he looked at her.  “Knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.  I’m tellin’ ya, no one can withstand my impressive feats of physical strength.” 

She fixed him with a look that was decidedly unimpressed.  “I’m surprised you’re interested considering your excessive grousing.”

“That was just the _right_ amount of grousing, thanks.  Didja see what you made me do?”

Her lips curled into a smirk; she absolutely had.  She took a breath, releasing it as a sigh.  “Since you did the scorpion I suppose I will have to try the ‘Junkrat original’, won’t I.”

A high-pitched giggle came from him as he looked incredulously toward her, his lips parting in a crooked little smile, an eye narrowed as he considered her.  “Maybe it’s best if we leave that to the professionals.”

  

* * *

 

 

She’d begun making excuses to see him against her better judgment and her will and if she allowed herself to think about it there was no longer any way to deny it.  Over the next few days they had run into other by convenient coincidences in the training yard (where she went to create hard-light constructions she had made hundreds of times before), in the rec room (where she had made a point of trying to play a game of pool that she had no interest in with Reinhardt), and in the communal restroom after she had exited the shower, still in her towel (she would never admit the intention of it), where they had stared at each other for a long moment before he awkwardly slipped past her with a nervous laugh and retreated into one of the showers himself with an obvious color to his cheeks.

It had been a mistake to actively seek him out.  Their conversation usually included small, suspicious comments that caused her mind to wander and more than once her night had been uneasy and filled with explicit images of his hair against a pillow, his hand roaming her body through the fabric of her uniform to slip underneath it along the curve of her stomach, and cool metal at her hip, pulling her towards him.

There had been missions but they had mostly been simple, quiet things that didn’t require much preparation or effort once they were there, and Winston was still gathering intelligence and lying low before they made their next move.  All seemed more or less peaceful despite the fact that everyone knew it might be a calm before the storm, and it was doing nothing to keep her mind off of things she would still rather not think about but that she was having too much trouble ignoring.  She had made an effort to spend more time with each of the other team members, feeling guilty for using them as distractions, although none of them seemed to mind, if they noticed.  Mercy, in particular, seemed happy to have tea with her and to discuss anything, regardless of what it was.

The workshop was of course the easiest place to find Jamison which may have been why she had avoided it, having little excuse of her own to go there; but she was running out of plausible reasons to find him anywhere without having to admit to anyone that she simply wanted to see him.

There came a point where she gave up resisting.

She could see him inside as she approached its doors, alone in the space and intent on his work, engrossed in whatever he was making—something she couldn’t make out.  The hiss of the door was too quiet to reach his ears and he failed to look up as she entered the room. 

It was still so curious to see him so wholly engaged in his work and she was free, for once, to take a good look at him without Roadhog’s eyes on her; despite the presence of the welding goggles she could see that his features were lightly pinched in concentration but his expression and posture were otherwise relaxed.  He paused and cocked his head to the side as he pulled the welding torch away from the metal and looked at the results with careful, gentle movements of his long fingers, brushing his thumb along an edge of the small item, the lines of his face smoothing as a faint but pleased smile bloomed on his lips.  It tugged at her stomach in a strange way that left her feeling off guard.  There was something about it, something undefined that felt new, or perhaps she simply hadn’t noticed before.  She’d had found herself noticing quite a few things lately.

She took a short breath as he re-lit the torch and his body began to lower back over the metal, quickly resuming her paces toward him with careful and tenuous steps.  The movement caught his attention and he paused, lifting his head, his shoulders straightening.  The welding goggles gave him the appearance of an owlish stare, an impression that didn’t change much when he lifted them up off of his eyes to his forehead and peered at her.  It wasn’t surprise, precisely, in his expression, but it was something pleasant.  The welding torch flickered out in a way that seemed uncertain as his eyes held steady on her, his lips pulling upward slowly into a slightly guarded, crooked grin.

“… hello.”

She returned the greeting with a deep breath and one of her own, quieter than she might have liked.  “Hello.”

He had set both the thin sheet of metal and the welding torch down, pulling the goggles off of his head.  She had expected them to leave behind perfect, clean circles around his eyes, but instead it highlighted his relative lack of dirt and grime.  Even the cracks of his fingers seemed cleaner than usual.  She tried to gather her attention but wasn’t entirely sure where she wanted it to be and in the time it took her to make up her mind he had stood up and circled around the chair he had been on, placing both hands on the back of it, his fingers tapping quietly but restlessly against the surface. 

She moved forward, slipping past him a bit too hurriedly with an unnecessary explanation that made her wince the moment it escaped from her.  “I just came to pick up some of my plans.”  The justification sounded weak and the fact that she had offered one in the first place felt suspect.  At the very least she was glad that she had, in fact, left some inconsequential plans there ages ago, and she gathered them and held them loosely in her palms as she returned to the forefront of the room.  She slowed her steps once she was near him and steeled herself, taking a breath and trying again for something natural.  It sounded more confident even as she leaned back gently against his workbench and—despite not being certain it was the best idea—lowered the rolled up papers to the surface, setting them down and indicating that she intended to stay for at least a short period of time.

Her tone was only vaguely curious as she spoke, folding her hands together and looking up at him.  “What are you working on?”

The blink was slow and it took him a moment to glance toward the bit of metal he’d been welding, as though he’d managed to forget in the seconds that had passed.  “Oh.  Somethin’ new.”  There was an excitement in his voice and his features lit up as he moved from the chair and plucked the bit of metal from where he had been working on it, tossing it back and forth in his palms to cool what little heat there was left.  It was small and uneven-looking, and once satisfied he presented it to her between two fingers.  It was a miniature hook, welded to a base with a hole in it.

“Ta da!” 

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to think of it and was still working on deciphering what the meaning of it was when he started to come closer, too quickly for her to properly react.  She looked up at him quizzically, her lips parted to try to form a question, but he was leaning in close enough that she could feel his body heat, his face brushing dangerously close to hers.  He was reaching past her for something on the work bench.  She breathed a sigh of relief as he withdrew with it in his hand.

“Is that…?”

“Yup.  _Finally_ got it out of the machine.  Pretty great, yeah?  Had him makin’ the chain for me, don’t think he knew what it was for.  Gonna give it to Hog when I’m done.  Maybe next time he’ll let me out of the trap.”

It was a stuffed animal, a pig, and it had been outfitted with a small cloth vest and a bit of rubber as a shoulder pad.  A small chain was looped around a strip of leather meant to be a belt and Jamison held up the hook appraisingly, concentration on his face as he measured with his eyes if the hole was big enough.

She did her best to slow the smile that was threatening to take over and lowered her eyes to the floor, her teeth finding her lower lip in an attempt to control it. 

“Yes.  Pretty great.”

When she raised her eyes he was looking at her, still close and suddenly distracted.  She could see the way his fingers curled on the items in his hand as his body shifted to the side, his hip finding the edge of the workbench next to her own, and his prosthetic leg curling in front of his good one to accommodate the new position of his lanky frame.

Speaking with him was one thing.  Being close to him was another.  She should have turned around the instant she saw that he was alone. 

His presence, particularly the way he had arranged himself beside her and the way he leaned towards her gave her a feeling of both excitement and a strange sort of uneasiness that left her lightheaded.  He was _so_ much taller despite his posture, and she lifted her chin to see his face, her eyes flitting to his lips against her best wishes.  She pulled them forcibly back up to his own gaze which, admittedly, was not much better; he was looking at her closely and inquisitively and in absolute silence.  She felt flustered and she wasn’t sure whether or not she liked it.

She had just parted her lips to take in a quiet breath, her chin lifting ever so slightly with the intent of saying something else when she was interrupted.  She was actually grateful to see Winston’s large form at the door and hung closely onto his mild-mannered tone as he called for her attention. 

“Oh!  Satya.  Glad I found you.  It looks like you’ve got an incoming message… I’ve got everything ready in the conference room for you to take it if you’d like.”

The air she had taken in escaped her as a slow breath of relief and she pulled away from Jamison slowly, realizing once she was farther away from him how reluctant she had been to leave.  It was a strange contradiction and she had no answers for it, but there was nothing she could do but try to correct the hitch in her breath as her eyes returning to him as she took careful steps towards the door.  He had replaced the stuffed animal and the hook on the workshop table and curled his arms across his chest.

She had left her plans on the bench beside him and, his lips curled up into a lopsided smile and his brows arched in mild amusement that she silently cursed him for.

“Seeya soon.”

   

* * *

 

 

“We would like for you to come back to Vishkar.”

She could hear Sanjay’s voice over the speaker of the display, unable quite to look at him, her eyes pointed blankly forwards as she listened to his words.  It felt as though they were attempting to pierce through a haze, that she was trying to hear them from far off in the distance.  He sounded excited in his subdued way that she couldn’t feel.  She forgot to meter her breath.

“We finally have the resources to build suitable housing for the ruffians displaced by the destruction of the favelas, and we would like you to be a part of the project.  We know how much it meant to you.  And besides, it has been far too long.” 

His tone softened ever so slightly; she was used to it, could detect it with ease, and recognized it for the attempt at drawing her attention that it was.  She blinked and closed her eyes tightly for a moment before opening them and allowing her gaze to come into focus on him as he went on.

“It was kind of you to help with Overwatch and no doubt was a valuable experience, but you have a greater purpose with us, here, again.”

She searched his face in numb silence for a moment before swallowing the feeling in her throat and allowing her eyes to fall back down to the floor.  Vishkar had been her dream, it had been her home, and Overwatch was originally meant as a temporary but long-term placement… an experiment.  In a way she hadn’t expected her time with them to end, particularly after such a long time with the organization.  But she found herself standing with her arms curled one over the other at the wrist, hands clasped gently in front of herself at her waist to keep them still.  Vishkar had given her everything, had taken her from a certain kind of hell and lifted her up to a transcendence she would have never imagined.  She owed them everything she was.  Everything she could do. 

She couldn’t possibly say no.

There was barely enough breath in her chest to give the words life but they still escaped from her, stunted and nearly-silent against the mixture of emotions in the pit of her stomach that she desperately wished that she could dispel.

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the hardest half hour of Jamie’s life for a variety of reasons
> 
> so this ended up being a monster. it was supposed to be a short fluff chapter with just a liiitttle bit of plot and I’m not sure what happened I’m sorry
> 
> I’m also not sure how happy I am with it, it fought me every step of the way so I hope it turned out okay.
> 
> I'm sorry to end this chapter (there will be more!) on a cliffhanger but also shit's about to pop off so get ready


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soundtrack: [["young the giant - something to believe in"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_ZRWZv14SA) starting to play in the distance]

Satya hadn’t told anyone about the call with the Vishkar Corporation except for Winston, who she had spoken to immediately, and when he had offered to spread the word to the other members of the team over the next day she had frozen up at either prospect.  The idea of informing any of them felt insurmountable, particularly on top of the overwhelming fact of preparing to leave over the course of only two days, and after a while she nodded her acquiescence to him thinking perhaps that it would be the better route.

It was a devastatingly terrible decision.

The word spread quickly and with an efficiency that felt brutal once it was clear to her that people knew.  Everyone for the most part tried to appear supportive, though it still hurt to listen to the forced positivity in Lena’s voice and the sincere request from Mercy that she stay in contact.  Reinhardt had forced her to sit down with him to share some stories over a drink and Torbj _ör_ n had shaken her hand respectfully and sincerely wished her the best, reminding her that she would always be welcome back.

She couldn’t find Jamison.

There was no sign of him in the workshop, or the rec room, and she hadn’t found him in the training yard.  After realizing the effect the news had had on the other team members she had even visited his quarters, knocking gently on the door.  When there was no answer she had simply stood in the hallway, utterly lost.

She had run into Roadhog in the corridors and asked him hesitantly where Jamison might be, but the large man had shrugged and rumbled a simple, “Dunno.”  He had offered no further guidance and no real response to the fact that she was leaving other than a broad hand lifted in a wave that seemed slightly more significant than usual and a pleasant “Good luck” before turning and trudging down the hallway.  In fairness, she thought grimly, he had never been much for words.

There ultimately wasn’t much for her to prepare.  Her belongings were scant and simple to pack and it left her with far too much time to do nothing but regret her decision to let someone else tell everyone for her.  But what was done was done.  Her initial attempts at meditation failed terribly but she exhausted her misery over the course of the first day and by the second had woken to a sense of resolved calm that allowed her to spend some final quiet moments with members of the team, more or less at ease save for the restless undercurrent that suggested perhaps she might not see Jamison at all.

The faint sound of explosions echoed from the training yard and the low rumble of it—so familiar and unremarkable otherwise—shattered what calm she had gained and sent her heart into her throat.  She excused herself as politely as she could and walked briskly to the training yard with her hands curled into fists.  As she slipped out the door she stopped to slow her pulse before she found him.

A mine exploded in the distance of her peripheral vision, decimating a training robot, and her breath caught in her chest.  

She found him sitting on a bench, staring off into the distance of the practice field, his fingers toying slowly and idly with a detonator.  Three more had been dropped at his feet where a pile of mines sat, unspent.  He didn’t seem to have noticed her.  She took a moment to simply take in the look of him and gather what information she could before drawing his attention.  His posture was terrible but no worse than normal, slumped forward with his elbows on his knees and his eyes pointed out blankly over the grass, lips in a dull, thin line.  It wrenched her stomach.  She steadied herself and moved without hesitation to the spot on the bench beside him and sat unceremoniously down, leaving him no opportunity to object.

He turned his head towards her without any significant change in expression save for one raised eyebrow that failed to convey any emotion at all.

“Oh.  G’day.”

Despite his appearance his voice sounded more or less as his typical in his less excited moments and he blinked slowly before looking away, clearly keeping her within his peripheral vision.  She tried to hide the way she shuffled her feet uncomfortably, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes following suit with his and pointing forwards.  He pulled himself upwards to match her own pose, sitting straight.

“I’m returning to Vishkar.”  She addressed the topic as though he didn’t already know and she could see the way his eyebrows raised in surprise, obviously not at the information itself, but she assumed at her decision to revisit the fact at all.  Pointlessly, she realized.  It was a stupid thing to do.  But she had had no idea what to say and now had no idea how to try again.  Luckily he cut in with a short breath and an abrupt attempt at a smile that was unconvincing but the fact that he had bothered to try was curious enough.

“Hog told me, actually.  I reckoned it was that call you got.”

“Yes.”

He looked toward her with his features twisted into a wry expression that still managed to seem good-natured despite it.  “Hope they’re payin’ you well.”

Her eyes widened reflexively.  It hurt, the idea that she might simply leave for money.  It felt like it took the wind out of her and it must have shown because he immediately bolted upright, his voice tripping over itself to get the words out as quickly as possible.  “Sorry, sorry, bad joke.  Didn’t mean anything like that, just… well, you know why _I’m_ here.”

She looked at him carefully from the corners of her eyes, her brow furrowed gently, not entirely soothed by the apology but no longer feeling the sting of the seemingly genuinely unintentional slight.  He was a mercenary, unapologetic about it, and she supposed the comment made sense for him.  She wasn’t, at least not in her own mind.  It was strange to have him recognize it, however obliquely. 

Her thoughts held stubbornly to that fact, though, and she looked back out to the yard in front of them with a troubled, thoughtful expression, her voice quiet as though the thought had only then occurred to her but firm all the same.  “I don’t believe you only care about the money.”

He was looking at her when she turned back.  His eyebrows had raised in a lazy arc paired with another wry smile that still looked a bit halfhearted. 

“I appreciate the vote of confidence but most major news organizations would disagree.”

“Perhaps they got their facts wrong.”

He didn’t have a response for it and looked out towards the yard with a thoughtful squint that didn’t bring any words to fruition.

She continued on.

“There’s… a history with Vishkar.”  It was difficult not to cringe with the words.  A history that wasn’t all pleasant, that dug at her with uncertainty from time to time, and she wasn’t sure if it would be enough for him.  She couldn’t possibly say that her time at Overwatch was _meant_ to be temporary… it seemed cruel somehow.  The idea of saying it caused something that felt like actual pain in her chest.

“Yeah.”  He hesitated on the words before deciding to say them anyway.  “Figured you might feel like you owe ‘em.”

She blinked and trained her eyes on him in questioning expression, not certain how he would draw that conclusion, and he continued on with an explanation in the same somewhat dull tone.

“Read your file.”

“Oh.”  She wasn’t sure how she felt about the statement and she tensed her jaw a bit at the thought.  She wanted to contest that it was the primary reason for going back.  The thought was too much to deal with in the moment and she settled for a familiar statement, one that settled neatly in her chest and was somehow soothing in itself.

“It’s not like that.  Vishkar is doing good things for the world.”

He turned his head to look at her, bent back down over himself and both hands passing the detonator between them, fidgeting.  The expression on his face was strange, drawn but with a cringing smile as though he were doing his best to seem polite.

“… right.  Sorry.  Just thought it might be part of it.”

It left her with nothing to say for a moment but he broke the silence with a voice that arched upward with a little smile and dogged positivity on the surface, but she could feel the resignation in it.  And something else that gave her that horrible sinking feeling.  A hidden suggestion and a guarded kind of hope.

“At any rate, seems like a good deal.  Someplace you belong, yeah?  Can’t beat that, especially for the price.”

Her response was without the appropriate feeling despite her attempt to infuse it with anything pleasant.  “Yes.  Although of course I’ll miss Overwatch as well.”

The grin he’d managed faltered as his lips pulled back and his eyes narrowed in a wince but he recovered.  She didn’t, cursing herself inwardly and knowing there were subtleties in what she’d said that she hadn’t fully thought through.  Frustration and anger seeped into her chest, directed fully towards herself, and she did her best to stave it off with a heavy breath, her brow furrowed.

He pulled himself to his feet with a quiet grunt of effort and fiddled with the detonator in his hand, spinning it idly as he stood in front of her for a moment with the same determined grin.

“Well.  I probably oughta get back to work.  These mines ain’t gonna build themselves.”  A faint giggle escaped his throat and seemed almost natural as he pocketed the detonator and considered her silently for a moment before shoving one hand in the pocket and letting the thumb of the other loop in the waistband of his shorts.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, yeah?”

“That doesn’t entail very much, does it?”

His giggle returned, a bit louder, and he narrowed an eye playfully at her, cocking finger in the air like a gun.

“Now you’ve got it.”

He didn’t give her a chance to say anything as he waved pleasantly and turned his body, making his way back towards the door.  She watched him move with his irregular gait until he entered the building and disappeared inside.

He had left the pile of mines behind.  She felt the strong urge to detonate one of them and sat there indecisively, for a moment trying to ground herself and create some kind of calm.  But the realization came to her that she didn’t _want_ to be calm and she lifted one of thick disks off of the ground, holding it gently and investigating it for a moment between her hands before rising to her feet, swiping up the associated detonator and holding it carefully in her free hand.  She lifted her eyes to the grass extending out before her and her eyes narrowed as she followed the path of a training bot as it moved smoothly across the ground.  The moment of hesitation was brief before she pulled the disk back and whipped it forwards as if she were skipping a stone and as it slid underneath the robot she pressed the detonator, an explosion wracking the yard and blowing the thing to pieces.

It was ultimately unsatisfying, though she supposed that was to be expected.  He hadn’t seemed terribly enthused either.

She set the detonator carefully back down on the bench and straightened herself with a deep sigh, preparing herself to enter the building.  There wasn’t much time left before she needed to go and there were still a few things that she needed to gather.  No time like the present.

  

* * *

 

 

“You didn’t say anything.”

“Didn’t seem right, mate.”

Roadhog’s burly arms were crossed across his chest, a deep, irritated rumble emanating from him in clear disapproval.  Jamison didn’t have it in him to wince and instead breathed a quiet sigh, letting his head fall back onto the couch.  He was splayed across it with a leg draped over the back and the prosthetic arm dangling lifelessly over the side.  His eyes remained pointed evasively towards the ceiling and his voice stayed constrained to a mutter as he tried to explain himself without much actual interest in doing so.

“All of this Vishkar stuff… guess they pulled her up off the streets when she was a kid.  I thought maybe she feels like she owes ‘em but I dunno anymore.”  He chewed on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully, features drawn.  He shook his head in irritation at himself and his voice dropped to something quieter and near-inaudible.  “Can’t blame her for feelin’ that way if she does, I guess.”

“Nothing, though.  You didn’t say _anything_.”

Agitation finally started to bubble up from under the surface as Jamison bit his teeth into the words defensively.  “What was I s’posed to do?  Springin’ somethin’ like that on her didn’t seem fair.  I reckon she’s got enough to worry about.  And there wasn’t much opportunity, besides.”

His eyes flicked towards Roadhog for a long moment, narrowed as if daring him to contest it.  When there was no response Jamison huffed loudly and looked back towards the ceiling.  The words grated in his throat.  “Didn’t want to make things harder I guess.”

“That’s an excuse.”

A low growl wrenched itself from Jamison as he pushed himself up abruptly, leg still draped over the back of the couch with his hand gripping the cushion to keep his weight up and the prosthetic lifted, palm upwards in a gesture that was both helpless and growing in irritation.

“Well whaddya want me to have said, mate?  What great ideas have you got, anyway?  Not sure exactly what you’d even know about it, ya tosser.” 

The frustration was clear but despite it he seemed to regret the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, his eyes widening slightly and his posture cringing away as though he expected Roadhog to come after him. 

He wasn’t wrong. A dangerously low sound came from Roadhog and his weight shifted forwards on the ottoman he’d been sitting on as he drew himself to his full height and started towards the lanky Junker with heavy steps.  Jamison blinked in surprise and tried to scramble to his feet but his awkward position left him snagged on the couch until a large hand grasped his arm above the metal prosthetic and dragged him to his feet amidst loud protests.  He tugged against Roadhog’s grip as well as he could with his foot on the floor but it was getting him nowhere and he was pulled suddenly and with ease against the larger Junker’s body as the man wrapped his arm around Jamison’s neck to put him in a loose headlock.

“Let me _go_ , ya drongo!”  Jamison managed to strangle out a loud sound of frustration as he kicked furiously, his foot and the peg leg bouncing harmlessly off of Roadhog’s knees.  “I’ll kill ya meself, swear on me mum’s life.”

When he wasn’t dropped immediately Jamison started biting like a rabid animal, doing his best to sink his teeth into Roadhog’s forearm with absolutely no success, the larger Junker’s grip tightening underneath his chin.

“Shut up.”  It only took a firm shake to make Jamison go quiet, the peg leg tenuously on the floor and the other dangling ineffectually due to the position of his body where he was wedged between Roadhog’s bicep and forearm.  “You’re gonna be quiet and listen to me for once.”  There was absolutely no negotiating with Roadhog’s tone and there was a pause where he waited to see if Jamison was going to cooperate.  Jamison remained perfectly silent, some of the tension leaving his body obediently.  Roadhog’s voice welled up in a slow rumble as he went on.

“You could’ve talked to her at any point like I _told_ you to, and what’d you do instead?  Drop stupid hints and hope she’d figure it out?”

Jamison didn’t answer but his body twisted experimentally, as though he thought he could somehow wriggle his way out of the conversation.

“So now this is where you’re at.  You got _yourself_ here.”  Roadhog tipped his head to the side at him, a gesture that Jamison couldn’t see.  “Who knows, if you’d said something she might’ve stayed.”

The sentences were punctuated by Roadhog’s long, wheezing breaths, giving them a weight that made Jamison wince.  His voice was strained and he waved his legs hesitantly toward the floor in a meek form of protest that silently tried to communicate if he was let go he’d behave himself.  It didn’t succeed.  His voice was lower and harder to hear.  “I don’t think...”

Roadhog’s grip loosened slightly an exasperated rumble came from him, not even letting Jamison finish the thought.  “Clearly.”

Jamison halfheartedly tugged on the arm around his throat with no effect and grunted, sullenly going silent.

After a moment Roadhog dropped him abruptly and without ceremony in a manner that seemed almost disgusted, leaving Jamison to struggle to find his feet with a few quiet coughs as Roadhog went on.  “If you’re so worried about interfering with her decisions you can call her.  She’s gone already, anyway.  Won’t change any choice she’s made now.”

Jamison lifted his fist to give his chest a few good whacks, coughing once or twice more before looking at the large Junker with his eyes still narrowed.  The look of anger intensified as he stood up straight, pointing all of his frustration at the larger man.  “What’s the point, mate?  She’s with those Vishkar suits now, might even be happier there.  Just leave it.”

Roadhog’s voice cut firmly into Jamison’s tone, barely allowing him to finish before abruptly offering his own.  It wasn’t phrased as a question.  He already knew.  “What exactly are you afraid of.”

Jamison’s eyes widened for just a moment.  He stared at Roadhog defiantly in absolute silence, his lips pursed to the side and his eyes narrowing again into a distinctly hostile glare, none of which answered the question.

Roadhog emitted a loud and wheezing laugh that held absolutely no amusement in it.

“You’re an idiot, Fawkes.”

Jamison lifted his eyes resentfully and didn’t bother to defend himself.  “Yeah, well, what else is new.”

The larger man snorted and curled broad fingers around his belt, hitching it upward as he turned abruptly and dismissively towards the door, trudging out of it without any interest in looking back and calling disinterestedly over his shoulder.

“Let me know when you’re done feeling sorry for yourself.”

 

* * *

 

 

Satya had ended most of her days exhausted.  They’d been keeping her remarkably busy, moreso than she had expected and moreso than ever before, which made it less surprising that they hadn’t immediately sent her to Rio De Janiero yet to join the team there.  She’d been told she would be reassigned soon, perhaps in two weeks or so, but had been shuffled off to different side-projects for the time being.  All of them were interesting and challenging, something that let her flex muscles she hadn’t been able to use properly in some time.  It seemed the Vishkar Corporation had been making some big expansions, and despite the hard work of it she was pleased to be involved.

If she were being honest with herself some of her pleasure was no doubt due to the fact that soon she would be working to rebuild the favelas.  It helped to soothe the guilt she felt for what had happened.  The way that they had burned to the ground.  The fact that Vishkar had not immediately provided the people new shelter.  It was a relief that they would be doing so now, although the weeks she was spending working elsewhere gave her an undercurrent of restlessness and she inquired frequently about her transfer to the Brazilian unit.

She didn’t blame Vishkar, exactly, for the Calado incident.  Or maybe she did.  She wasn’t sure who she blamed but it was, in part, herself.  If she had handled the negotiations differently, perhaps—if she hadn’t alienated their potential client as she felt like she had—they never would have had to infiltrate that building and it wouldn’t have come to the same end.

As busy as she was it might have been possible to drown out all thoughts of Overwatch entirely, but the very thought of it upset her and she looked forward to the calls from Mercy every few days with updates on how everyone was doing and what the team was up to.  The calls often came far too early for her to be fully awake due to their different time zones but she enjoyed them nonetheless.  Satya gleaned from their conversations that all had been going well, missions had been frequent and quiet, and that many of them sent her their well wishes.  Winston was busy as always.  Reinhardt and Torbj _ö_ rn had had a drinking contest.  Mercy asserted that no one had won.  When he learned Mercy would be calling her, Roadhog had been insistent about sending her a single-worded message: Hi.

Jamison had been mentioned on their first call and never since.  Perhaps Mercy had noted her uncomfortable silence.  She had swallowed the feeling in her stomach and hadn’t asked about him, an intense wave of guilt sweeping over her after each call but that she decided she preferred to the alternative all the same.  She knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid thinking about him forever but she simply wasn’t ready yet.  It was a terrible feeling that she drowned out with an obsessive focus on her work.  It was the only thing that reliably kept him out of her mind.  Luckily she had plenty of it.

It had been difficult readjusting to the Vishkar Corporation setting after so much time at Overwatch and while she began to get her feet back under her after about a week she found herself wishing Sanjay had been moved from his duties in Rio and been reassigned to be with her until she could meet the Brazilian faction and begin her work there.  He had always been a welcome stabilizing force, and while she didn’t feel as though she _needed_ his presence it still would have been a nice thing to have.

As it was, she did her best to enjoy the company of her new team despite the fact that she didn’t always feel it.  She had a vague feeling like homesickness but she wouldn’t have been able to say where for—being stuck between two places made her feel off-balance and uncomfortable.  Regardless, it made it difficult for her to fully enjoy her time, no matter how much she liked her work.

She was incredibly relieved when the two weeks were up.

Despite her history with it Rio De Janiero felt like an oasis in the desert as she stepped off of her transport to see Sanjay waiting with a broad and welcoming smile.  She hadn’t realized how much tension she was holding until some of it dissipated and took a breath that felt like the first she had in weeks.  His face was familiar and familiarity was sorely needed. 

“Satya!  It’s so good to see you.”

She clasped his hands in greeting as she smiled at him in return, allowing a relieved breath to escape her.

“And you too, Sanjay.  It’s been so long.”

“Yes.  We shouldn’t have let them keep you.”  Her smile faltered at something in his tone and she blinked before she carefully resumed her pleasant expression.  Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she had noticed the displeased curl of his lips over the words.  If she had it was gone the moment he continued.  “I hope your time away went well?”

She felt guarded in her response given his earlier expression and she hoped it didn’t show in her voice.  “It did.”

She fell into step at his side, slightly behind him, clasping her hands behind her back as they walked, and had the sense that he was waiting for more.  Her mind darted over things to offer but each thought she drew up felt strangely intimate and a discomfort crept into her features as she alighted on the best thing she could manage.

“It was certainly an experience.”  It sounded reductive to her ears and insulting in a way she hadn’t intended.  Even without any of them present it wrenched her stomach.  She shook the feeling off.  It was only idle conversation, anyway.

Sanjay laughed quietly and glanced back towards her briefly before facing forward once again.  “I’m certain that’s one word for it.  Regardless, we’re thrilled to have one of our finest Architechs back with us and very excited to have you involved in some of our new projects.  But first I will show you to your quarters so that you can settle in.  I’m certain you will find them much more agreeable than the accommodations you had with Overwatch.”

She did remember.  It would be nice to have more space again, a larger bed, rich fabric and furniture and her own bath.  That was one thing that had taken her quite some time to become accustomed to.  But his reference to Overwatch brought the faint downward curve of her lips back and she lifted a hand to carefully tuck strands of hair behind her ear.  She tried to respond with good humor all the same.

“Yes, it is quite the difference.”

“We know how to treat our valued colleagues here.”  His smile seemed perfectly benign as they approached the door that would be hers and yet a discomfort still sat in the pit of her stomach as he pressed it open to allow her inside.  It was understatedly beautiful, as were all Vishkar constructions, and she stepped into the room with a deep breath to clear her mind.

“We’ll see you for dinner?  Six o’ clock.”

She had forgotten his presence in the moment or two she had taken to herself and lifted her head, turning to smile at him in affirmation.  “Of course.”

Once he was gone she gently closed the door behind her and better examined the room.  Her bags had already been delivered and sat neatly next to the bed, the curtains drawn to expose a sprawling view of  a section of the city—all Vishkar architecture, she realized, far more extensive than it had been before—and a console glowing gently at the desk in the corner.  Her eyes caught on the dim orange light of it and she approached it, allowed her fingers to hover hesitantly above the projected keys, and reluctantly pressed through them, exploring.  Her contacts were all already there, the Overwatch base simply listed as “O.W.”, and she stared in silence at the letters for a long moment, the call signal beside it, before quickly closing the window and turning away.  A shower was just the thing to clear her mind, and for the first time in quite a while she wouldn’t have to worry about running into anyone else while still in her towel.

 

* * *

 

 

They spent three days in re-orientation as Sanjay caught her up with the changes that had been made, the progress, and introduced her to both old and new faces of those working on the project with them.  At Sanjay’s suggestion she had volunteered to teach for a few days while she was reintroduced to everything, giving brief, informal lessons to small groups of interns with the organization.  That in particular she found very rewarding.  Her time had been almost wholly consumed by some form of socialization or other and by the time the day came for her to return to work with the rest of the team on the favela project she was a strange mixture of exhausted, excited, and comfortable.

She had woken up and begun her typical morning routine, her attention on brushing her hair when she noticed the gentle blinking light on her monitor indicating that she had a message.

The icon on her display was marked O.W.  Mercy, she assumed, checking in as she had been every few days.  She was always happy to get them but calls usually came in either early in the morning or messages at mid-day.  This one was time-stamped from the night before.  It must have come in while she was at dinner and she had simply missed it before collapsing into bed, meaning that Mercy had tried to call very late at night.  It made her heart jump in concern as she opened it.

It certainly wasn’t Mercy; it took her a moment to make out the shape.  When she did her body slid immediately into the seat in front of the monitor of its own volition, her eyes focused on the screen.

It was Jamison. 

His hair was swept back, a tank top resting on the line of his shoulders, the freckles dotting them visible even in the lower light.  It looked as though he were wearing pajamas.  Her eyes devoured the sight of him, leaving her expression blank in surprise.

He was looking off toward the side—toward the door, she realized—with his neck craned and his lips pursed together as if looking carefully and uneasily for something.  After a moment of apparently no results he looked into the camera with a crooked little grin pulling his lips back at one corner just enough to see his gold tooth, his head cocked just slightly to the side.

“Hello hello.” 

She almost couldn’t believe it.  She could feel a tightness in her chest, something that might amuse her under certain circumstances.  It had been nearly three weeks without a single word and suddenly he was there, speaking as if there hadn’t been any distance at all.  

There was a pause as he stared at the camera blankly, either not having prepared much to say or having forgotten it.  She took the opportunity to carefully examine his face and after a moment a long breath left her in a sigh exhaled through her nose, taking some of her tension with it.  She rested her elbow against the surface of the desk and leaned in, allowing her hand to cup her chin as her fingers came to rest against her cheekbone.

He continued in a mutter.

“Never did like these things much.  I mean, I’m sittin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of glowin’ lights.”  She had trouble attempting to keep the smile that was threatening to take over her lips in check.  His voice had dropped to a near-inaudible mumble partway through as if he were speaking to himself, his eyes moving away from the camera itself to nothing in particular in the near-distance, his features unfocused and incredulous.  He shook off the distraction a moment later and went back to looking back at the camera.

“Anyway, hi.  It’s been a while, yeah?  Hog said I should call.  He’s good at knowin’ when I should do things and can be pretty convincing.  I dunno if you noticed but he can be right terrifying when he wants to be.”  He shrugged, his voice continuing on, seeming light and carefree, something she wouldn’t have expected.  “Knows me better than I know meself, probably.  Kinda creepy actually.”

She could hear a strange, quiet rhythm in the background, an incessant beat that was nearly out of her hearing range but as she narrowed her eyes to better watch him she realized that it was the result of him tapping his foot rapidly against the floor.  It moved his entire body.  Subtly, but still intense enough to do so.  The fingers latched along the edge of the desk in front of him followed suit, tapping in sequence just once before going still. 

“Told me how much you miss me.”  He didn’t quite manage to stifle the giggle that welled up from him, amused at himself for the comment.  What seemed like nervousness had switched rapidly to one of his languid smiles and a teasing lilt to his voice as he let his eyes drift to the side.  The smile remained self-satisfied with itself as he went on, clearly lying.  “Like I said, he knows how to read people.”

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that there was no one there to laugh, but the smile faded off pretty quickly and he took a deep breath, looking into the camera for a moment before doggedly dragging the pleased expression back on face.

“Haven’t been doing much yoga or anything.  Despite my obvious skill I think I might not… do…. that.”  He cleared his throat before quickly moving on.  “Winston’s found out a lot of stuff I’m probably not at liberty to say, but it’s good stuff I bet, very revealing.  Other people seem pretty excited about it, anyway.  We’re goin’ out on a big mission tomorrow for it.”

He leaned in towards the camera conspiratorially with eyebrows lifting in a high arch.

“Nothin’ against those special mines I made?  But it’ll be nice to use the real thing again.  Might even get to use the tire.”

His eyes lit up in a way that made her smile once again, a louder giggle bubbling from his throat before slowly dying out.

“Anyway…”

His hands left the edge of the table and dropped, she assumed by the way his shoulders rose up to press against his thighs.  He glanced briefly back to the door, craning his neck again before looking back and she could see his chest rise as he sucked in a large breath through his teeth, staring into the camera wide-eyed before dropping his gaze briefly downwards.

“It’d be good to have you around for it.  I know you’re busy though.  Could probably still use a good turret array.” 

It didn’t seem quite like what he wanted to say because his eyes narrowed towards the desk with his lips pressed against one-another in displeasure and he hesitated for a moment before clearing his throat and trying again.

“Truth is I, uh—”

She could hear a different voice, muffled, she assumed from the hallway. ~~~~

He cringed, a loud sound of frustration escaping him and his features pinching, eyes tightly shut for a moment and teeth gritted before he lifted his head and yelled off-screen, his teeth snapping after the words.  “ _Christ_ mate, I _told_ you I’d be there in a second!”

The other voice drifted in again, audible this time.  Roadhog’s, sounding impatient.  “You _said_ five minutes, not fifteen.”

Jamison looked miserable and flustered and his posture left him slouched back against the chair he’d been sitting in, staring blankly into the camera with a small frown.  He threw off the look long enough to toss his thumb back in a gesture to indicate Roadhog and offer a weak grin.  “Can ya believe this mug?  Can’t leave me alone for five seconds.”

He cleared his throat once more, swallowing heavily after, and sat in silence for a moment in apparent thought before reaching a decision, sitting up and bringing his hand to the side of the camera, peering into it with a forced smile.

 “Better go.  Hope you’re doin’ alright.”

The feed cut out abruptly and left her looking at a screen blank save for the words indicating that it was the end of the message.

She fell back against the back of the chair.  She wasn’t entirely sure where the feeling of shock had come from but it was there all the same as she continued to stare at the empty monitor for the better part of a minute, her thoughts racing.  She couldn’t even begin to put her finger on the emotions, but she did know that the message had quickened her heart and made her feel light in a way she hadn’t since she’d left. 

The idea of it traced her lips upwards in another faint smile as she looked at the time.  If they had planned to leave in the morning they would be out on their mission already, and besides, she had quite a few things to do for the day.  The day ahead had made her slightly nervous enough as it was, and the message had only contributed to the restlessness.  One thing was certain; she would be returning the call that night as soon as she had completed her duties, regardless of how late it was at the Overwatch base.  Even if she didn’t catch Jamison she could leave a message.

The alarm threw out a gentle ding to alert her to the time and she slipped out of the chair quickly, as though if she stayed another second she wouldn’t be able to leave, and she quickly rushed through the rest of her morning routine, attempting to refocus her mind on the day ahead.  Despite her anticipation a faint smile painted her lips as she made the final adjustments to her Vishkar uniform and opened the door, glancing behind herself at the console for a moment before slipping through and closing it behind her, allowing her focus to regroup on the day’s tasks.  Sanjay would be waiting, and she would finally be able to put her skills to work.

 

* * *

 

 

They weren’t going to the city center or the location of the old favelas, before they had burned.  Sanjay informed her that the inhabitants had been moved elsewhere, a fact that had made her uneasy but one she understood all the same.  They passed near where the run-down shacks used to be and she saw the new Vishkar buildings, clean and bright in the sun, that had taken their place.  She wondered who they housed. 

Their transport was taking them beyond the line of Vishkar constructions that cut across the city, farther than she expected.  Her brow furrowed gently as she watched the gentle color of hard-light constructs drift by and wondered at the size of it.  Vishkar hadn’t previously been able to reach so far out of the city’s center—they hadn’t been able to secure the land contracts, not helped by the reputation their company had gained for attracting a particularly hostile kind of resistance toward their expansion, especially after the theft of Vishkar technology.  Very few people were willing to volunteer their plots for improvement when it came with the threat of armed resistance and destruction, and the loss of their technology to resistance forces had significantly damaged their reputation.

Somehow Vishkar had managed to succeed if not thrive in spite of it if the pervasive nature of their architecture was any indication.  They were nearing the edge of their territory, however, and she looked out the window at the sudden appearance of haphazard buildings of the favelas with a small cringe, in a way having forgotten what their work environment would be like.  But it was for a good cause, and when Sanjay stepped outside of the transport vehicle she followed suit behind him, taking a long, slow breath before exiting to savor the clean air before she had to make her place in the street.

The place was dismal: disorganized groups of shelters held up against one-another with scant Vishkar constructs along the edge of the property, four or five at most.  The narrow streets were littered with debris, some no doubt from the shelters that had been torn down to make room for the new buildings.  She supposed that the conditions were was why she was here, at any rate, and perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised.

It did surprise her how new all of it seemed, the dirt of the streets not even packed down from use, still loose and uneven, and she caught the presence of a guard near where they had entered, armed.

It certainly wasn’t what she had expected, nor what she had hoped.  Sanjay was at her side in a moment as she examined the place and looked over what few inhabitants were in sight, a few of whom had stopped to stare.

Despite how bad the favela in the city had been before, this seemed somehow worse.

Her voice was quiet with regret, and she hadn’t even been aware that it had escaped her aloud.  “We displaced them.”

Sanjay stood beside her in silence for a moment before speaking, his voice calm.  It was soothing in its nature, in its familiarity, and she felt a part of her relax with it.

“That seems like an unfair word to use.  Regardless, they were not relocated by us.  Not by Vishkar.  The mayor decided they would be better elsewhere.”  He looked back out over the sprawl in front of them, the clean lines where ramshackle buildings ended and where Vishkar constructions began.  His voice continued on, measured and gentle.  Matter-of-fact in a way that dissuaded argument simply by its own surety.  “It benefits all of them to be here instead.  They will have new housing with your efforts and they will live new lives befitting their station.”

She glanced from the ramshackle buildings to him questioningly.  “I had thought the buildings in the city…”

“Unfortunately those were given to city officials.  There simply wasn’t enough room to house all of these people.”

There had been room before.  Crowded and chaotic, but room all the same, and nothing Vishkar couldn’t fix by simply improving the design of their housing.  She didn’t voice her doubts but instead closed her eyes for a moment and tried to focus on his words, still finding she disagreed with him but unable to argue the point.  Her thoughts drifted to other things.

“How are they supposed to support themselves?”

“There are ample jobs available at the factories for those who are willing to work.”

“And the armed guards?”

“For their own protection.  You know the results of the so called ‘freedom fighters’ efforts: destruction and chaos.  It would be remiss of us not to provide them with guards.”

She went silent.  Despite his words and tone it wasn’t quashing the deep-seated feeling that something was wrong.  She could feel the frustration welling up in her.  She knew her concerns were valid but he brushed them aside so easily she couldn’t help but wonder if her worries were unfounded.

She looked at one of the guards who quickly moved out of sight around one of the ramshackle houses and released a breath in a hesitant sigh.  They were so far from the city it seemed like they had little choice than to work in the factories.

“You must understand, Sanjay.  This looks like a labor camp.”  Her voice sounded nearly defeated to her own ears, gently pleading and dismayed.  She was hoping to find some reassurance from his words.  She needed to.  It appeared none was forthcoming.

“How could you think such a thing?”  The admonishment was without any true judgment, and he fixed her with a calm gaze.  “I understand your concerns, but that is simply not the case.”

There was one thing she was absolutely certain of, one thing that he couldn’t explain away.  She knew her craft far better than him, of that she was sure, and her fingers curled against one another in determination to challenge it.  If he could see _this_ perhaps he could see the flaws in the rest of it.

She broke away, moving closer to one of the buildings of Vishkar architecture despite the filth on the ground and craned her head as she appraised it silently, a gentle crease forming on her brow with the growing current of frustration underlying her movements.  The unit was empty.  It certainly wasn’t what she hoped for.  The space was cramped, the ceilings low.  Only one small window allowed in natural light, inadequate she thought, supposing the relative difficulty of creating thin hard-light sheets might have influenced the decision.  Only a few of the buildings had been made, as if the project had only been started a week or so ago.  Her jaw tightened as she withdrew and peered towards the other, seemingly occupied shelters.  Even from where she stood she could see the blank plains of the walls and floors, some covered in cardboard and newspaper for insulation and padding.  Something she had seen in the original favelas themselves.  She turned her eyes towards Sanjay.

She knew the answer but she asked anyway.  “This is the housing we’re providing them?” 

Sanjay looked toward her, eyebrows gently raised in concern as he allowed his eyes to drift over the cool blue of the hard-light architecture. 

“Yes.  Is there a problem?”  His tone seemed genuine, as if he was truly weighing her opinion and the influence of it mattered.

“They look like prison cells.  And very little improvement from the original favelas.”  Her voice sounded like a challenge, albeit still a gentle one, her fist curled gently at her side, the pressure of her fingers on her palm meant to stave off the growing agitation that was threatening her calm.

Sanjay fixed her with a reassuring smile as he followed to her side, placing his body just slightly in front of her own, and looked out at the same view with his arms crossed in his formal manner behind his back.

“They’ve been determined as the most efficient design to house the number of people that they must in such a small space.”

“They aren’t.”  The surety in her voice expressed itself on the thin line of her lips as she looked at him closely as though daring him to object.  “They are simply the easiest, and they are shoddily constructed, and any competent Architech would recognize this.  I would even say that they are dangerous.” 

He seemed somewhat taken aback, glancing at her and the building before regrouping.  “… a perfect example of why we need you on the project, Satya.  Your skills and guidance are indispensable.”

She narrowed an eye as she appraised him, safe with him looking momentarily elsewhere, her lips pressed together in thought.  Her eyes turned back towards the structure and she drew in a deep breath.  “We could build so much _more_ than this.”

“We could, yes, but that would require more funding.  We are not, sadly, a charity organization.”

“But you said we _had_ funding.”

“Not enough for such improvements.”

“But it would take so little.”   Her voice was firm and beginning to grow in volume.  “Do you mean to tell me that Vishkar is incapable of providing even minimal shelter to the people it displaced?  It has been _months_ , Sanjay.  And yet it _is_ capable of creating new buildings for others in the city.”

“Not incapable—“

She cut him off.  “Simply not its priority.  Yes, I understand.”  She took a harsh breath of air and released it the same.  There was a suspicion in her mind that she didn’t want to voice, one with repercussions no matter how it was answered, but her tongue refused her urge to still it and her voice actually grew a bit louder, stronger.  “Was this part of it?  The Calado incident?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean, Satya.”

“ _Stop_ using my name.”

He acquiesced, perfectly agreeable in all of his mannerisms and she was infuriated that she could find no solid reason to be angry with him.  All she had was a feeling, but one that was growing and unwilling to be pushed down.

He tried to move forward with a quiet voice that she began to suspect was deflection.

“If you have concerns about the quality of work…”

“I do.  I have voiced them to you.  You are not listening.”  She paused and closed her eyes, attempting to refocus on what was important.  “I asked you if this was part of our involvement in the Calado incident.  Displacing these people.  Forcing them to work for the factories.”

“No one is being forced—”

“They have no other alternative.  It is functionally the same.  Surely you must see this… in the city they at least had their independence.”

He appeared to have nothing to say in response until she had looked away over the buildings once again, trying to gather her thoughts.  He took the opportunity to speak.

“Calado was an unfortunate accident.  This is merely making the best of the situation.”

One that seemed to benefit the Mayor.  And the factories.  And Vishkar.  She shook her head gently against it and closed her eyes.  He had an answer for everything, no matter what she said, and she focused on the doubt coiled in her stomach and did her best to force it away.  It was easier when she focused on the frustration that had built in her chest and allowed it to fuel her instead.  She was asking the questions before she even realized it—things that hadn’t fully formed themselves in her mind until they were on her tongue and she couldn’t stop herself.

“Why did you send me to Overwatch, really?”  Her heart was beating faster and she had trouble slowing her thoughts as the possibilities came to her mind, a tightness growing in her chest as she realized just how plausible they all seemed.  “To remove me from the project, to keep me from seeing all of this?  After Calado, when I expressed my doubts…”  They were beginning to sound like accusations rather than simply attempts to understand and each possibility was quickly beginning to sound more desperate.   “To curry Overwatch’s favor?” 

“Satya, you are making a scene…”

She was, and she didn’t care.  Her eyes narrowed at the admonishment that had been offered to her so smoothly with his tone full of comfort and understanding even as his expression remained impassive and her hands curled into fists at her sides, her fingers digging hard into the skin of her palm.

She could hear how her voice had grown in volume and insistence as she spoke and ignored the eyes that had turned toward her from the people in the favela and the uneasiness of the armed guards whose attention was gathering toward the scene.  Her mind slowed as one of the racing thoughts loomed larger and her eyes widened gently, her features smoothing out around them. 

 “… did you think if you sent me to them they would fight the resistance for you?”

Sanjay’s silence struck her as damning.  She couldn’t pinpoint any change in his expression but something was different, not quite blank.  There was an edge of displeasure to it in the way his eyelids lowered ever so slightly.  It was certainly like nothing she had ever seen on him, and for some reason it curled around her heart in a cold grip that left her feeling deeply shaken.  It only had the effect of making her angrier.  Her body turned toward him of its own volition, her eyes narrowed and closed in on his features, watching him carefully.

“Where did the money come from, Sanjay?  For the favelas.”  Her voice had drawn lower, firm and sure of itself.  “Where is it going?”

“Satya, I—”

Her anger flared at the sound of her name on his tongue and she turned on her heel, stepping forward toward the empty structure, breathing deeply as she raised her hands in front herself, one palm curled toward the other.  The pose was delicate but in a moment she had extended her arms, her body twisting with it and as she came to the greatest extent of her reach her fingers curled viciously around the nothingness between them.  The expression on her features was fierce as she razed the middle wall of the structure in an instant, a deep crack forming on the ceiling as it crumbled.

Her chest rose and fell a bit faster from the effort but she felt stronger for it, turning her back on the rubble abruptly and striding toward the transport vehicle without so much as looking at Sanjay.  Instead she addressed the driver who was looking at her in shock, her voice firm and not something to be questioned.

“Take me back immediately.  I want no part in this.”

 

* * *

 

 

She was still in something like a state of shock, her mind racing over the things she knew and the things she suspected and a lack of understanding of the seemingly simple question: why?  The favela project was clearly a lie and had been from the beginning.  They had never intended to rebuild them, or if they had… She wasn’t sure she could truly consider the idea that it was only to be so that they could create a convenient location to harvest cheap labor.  Even if she believed it were possible there couldn’t even be much benefit to them.  Still, the idea had settled as a hard knot in her stomach and she thought she might be sick… regardless of whether or not they had ever attempted to _stop_ such practices, Vishkar had never involved itself with such things, not to her knowledge.  She was beginning to wonder how much she might not know.

It felt wrong to focus on it rather than the other aspects of what was happening but she couldn’t understand why Vishkar had worked so hard to keep her there, first with so many satisfying and challenging projects when she had arrived and then, after her insistence, with a halfhearted and rushed version of her wishes to rebuild what had been lost by the people in the fire from the Calado incident.  She looked back and realized that even her time at the Rio headquarters may have been a part of it: the food, the lodgings, the opportunity to teach.  If they hadn’t wanted to go forward with the favela project why had they used it to entice her to come back? 

She closed her eyes, briefly lowering her head into her hands as she tried to make sense of it.  She would have come back to Vishkar even regardless of the project.  At least, she thought so.  It was hard to tell and her mind felt muddled on the details but it wasn’t important, it wasn’t a fact that she needed to puzzle out Vishkar’s motives, and so she pushed it aside with a shaky breath, attempting to refocus on other things.

Her mind came around to the money once again.

She had no idea where it came from.  She only knew that it did not go to the favela project as she had been told.

She looked out of the window at the beautiful, sprawling Vishkar architecture surrounding her and gritted her teeth against the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, curling here fingers tightly into the palms of her hands with slow, carefully metered breaths that did little to help her maintain control of her nerves.

None of it had been real.  The Calado incident… it couldn’t have been an accident, no matter how Sanjay denied it, and if she had just _thought_ about it—examined it, actually given it any attention—she would have known.  Maybe she had, on some level.  Lives had been ruined and she had simply accepted their excuses that it was a chance of fate when there was reasonable evidence to suggest otherwise.  It was unconscionable to have willfully ignored it, but she had.  And Sanjay had calmly reassured her all along.

She had been such an idiot.  She _was_ an idiot.

When they finally reached Vishkar headquarters she slipped out of the transport and made her way to her room as quickly as possible, ignoring whatever greetings were offered to her and resolutely taking the stairs where she wouldn’t be stuck in an unwilling attempt at conversation.  The movement may not have helped to work off any of her distress, but it didn’t allow more to build, and she needed what few blessings she could get to try to keep herself calm.

She shut herself in her room and locked the door, leaning back against it as if it might help keep everything else out.  For once the surroundings weren’t comforting.  The monitor on the desk flashed gently with multiple missed messages.  The room served as nothing more than a reminder of everything that had just happened and everything it meant and she felt like she was drowning in it.  She desperately needed a breath of fresh air.

 It was a relief to have the window open.

The cool breeze pressed against her as she took it in in deep breaths, her eyes slipping closed to better concentrate on the feel of it against her face.  It seemed like so often that she had to force herself to push thoughts away in order to keep herself under control, performing a careful balancing act between letting too much in and letting in not enough.  It made her distant sometimes, she knew, and she hated the way it occasionally made her feel helplessly trapped in the middle so as not to end up at one extreme or the other.

Perhaps it was better to think about Vishkar, actually, than this.

She opened her eyes and looked out over the city in front of herself, inwardly cursing the view.  The smooth buildings of Vishkar architecture were endless and she curled her fingers against the edge of the window with a residual ember of anger lighting something in her chest.  They had expanded out so far.  How had they expanded so far?  With the difficulties of securing contracts because of the resistance from the freedom fighters…

She realized suddenly that the only way that Vishkar would have been able to increase its boundaries as far as it had would be by successfully quashing any form of resistance.  And it wouldn’t simply disappear, Vishkar knew that after the incident where their technology had been stolen.  It had been a blight on their reputation and caused a loss in confidence that they had been struggling to regain.  Destroying the work of the freedom fighters was paramount.

Perhaps Vishkar _had_ attempted to employ Overwatch for the job, as she had suggested.  Perhaps when it hadn’t worked they began looking for other options.

That was where the money had gone.  Whoever the money was coming from it was going toward the fight against the resistance, she was certain of it.  But it still left the question of how Vishkar had obtained it.

A gentle beeping from the console at her desk alerted her to an incoming call.  For a moment she considered simply not answering it, expecting it to be Sanjay attempting to soothe her or any number of Vishkar employees checking in on her, but as she looked toward the display it showed only two letters: O.W.

She hadn’t expected a call from them, particularly given that they ought to be on their mission.  It seemed a bit early for it to be over, but she supposed if everything had gone well they might already be back at the base.

It didn’t matter.  She pulled in a deep breath to meter her surprise and moved quickly to the console, eyes wide and attentive as she reached to accept the call, not bothering to sit down.  It was incredibly convenient; it couldn’t have come at a better time and she was willing to take any good thing that came her way.

When the feed picked up she was greeted with the image of Winston’s face and she had never been happier to see him.  The deep tenor of his voice drew a relieved breath from her.

“Satya.  I’m—”

“I’m coming back to Overwatch.”

He stammered, his words coming to an abrupt halt as he stared in her in surprise, eyes wide as he glanced from her face to the way she was standing impatiently and then back again before he managed to regroup.

“Oh.  That’s—good.  That’s good.”  He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising with it and falling profoundly to leave his posture too loose.  She had seen that posture before, when they had learned of their mistake in Ilios and surprisingly often simply during interactions with Jamison.  Defeated.  She knew suddenly that something was wrong.

“I have some bad news.”  His voice moved over the words too slowly and she watched him closely, her body tensing with impatience.  “How quickly can you leave?”

“Immediately.”  Her voice clipped over the word; the sooner the better.  She barely took a second to breathe, her anxiety fueling the urgency in her voice.  “Winston, what’s wrong?” 

His nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath, exhaling in a loud, disheartened sigh.

“Jamison’s been taken.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry


	22. Chapter 22

The first part of the trip was completely silent.  It was only herself and Winston in the transport ship, he apparently having decided that he wanted to pick her up personally.  The rest of the team, he explained, were back at the satellite base in Egypt recuperating.  Roadhog had apparently been badly wounded and was being attended to by Mercy.  The others thought it best to regroup.

She didn’t want to talk about either Vishkar or Jamison, not immediately, and so she rode silently next to him, staring out over the setting sun on the horizon.  He seemed to pick up on her mood and had followed her lead.  Eventually she was ready.

“I’d like to talk now.”

He released a breath that she suddenly suspected he had been holding.

“We don’t have a lot of details yet.  Mako was there and he seems pretty confident that they were bounty hunters.  He was in pretty bad shape.  Once we made sure he was stabilized he stressed that they’d wanted Jamison alive.  He seems pretty sure that they’ll want to keep him that way until he gives up the location of whatever that treasure is that he found.  Which he seemed to think wouldn’t happen anytime soon.”

Her eyes had drifted and she blinked them back into focus.  Of all things her mind latched onto a single detail: it was strange to hear anyone use Roadhog’s real name.  She’d almost forgotten what it was.

The gorilla blinked as well and looked briefly surprised, similarly preferring to focus on a different detail and muttering to himself.  “It’s the most I’ve ever heard him talk.”

She’d rather not think about the rest of it but supposed she would have to eventually.

“Do we have any leads?”

“We tried looking at the scene but didn’t find much of anything useful.  We’re going to have to go off of what Roadhog says and whatever else we can dig up, but the likelihood is they haven’t left Cairo.”

“And we’re not concerned with time.”

She could see him wince at the words.  It did make it sound worse than she had intended, but at the same time she felt like a part of her was consuming itself with the need to do something.  Anything.

His voice was quieter as he went on.  The apology was there, unstated.  “We have to know where to look first.”  And then, more hopefully, “Fareeha Amari is a friend and is pooling her resources as well.  They’ve more or less taken to inspecting every larger transport leaving the city.  I’d be willing to guess we’ll have a lot more information even by the time we get back.”

She nodded silently and retreated into her own thoughts.

The idea of Roadhog being seriously injured shook her.  It just didn’t seem possible.  They must have been up against either insurmountable firepower or something more clever, nothing typical bounty hunters could afford or nothing she felt like they would likely think up.

If that was what they had done to Roadhog she shivered at the idea of what they might do to Jamison.  The fact that he didn’t think Jamison would be telling them anything anytime soon wasn’t exactly a comfort.   She wondered if he’d endured this kind of thing before.

The timing seemed like too much to be a coincidence, or maybe she was just pulling at strings to try to find a pattern.  Sometimes she needed to find meaning in things simply to ground herself.  And besides, it didn’t seem as though the people who took him were working with anyone.  Bounty hunters didn’t often have alliances, at least not likely.

Winston’s voice eventually cut in with a hesitant curb to it.  “Do you mind if I ask what happened at Vishkar?”

A strange sort of calm had enveloped her but she swallowed all the same, taking in a slow breath to prepare herself for the words.  “I was asked to return under false pretenses.  Or at least… they wanted me there for some reason, more than simply wishing to make use of my skills again.”

A thought struck her and she looked toward him suddenly, realizing she might be able to find at least one answer.  “Did Vishkar ever try to enlist Overwatch to fight the rebels in Brazil?”

The gorilla’s body tensed as his posture straightened and he looked at her in surprise, lifting a hand to push up his glasses as he returned to looking out the window.  His voice seemed genuinely shocked with an undercurrent of distress.  “I thought you knew.  I just assumed given that Vishkar suggested you come here that they had told you.” 

She looked at him, her brow furrowing.  There were quite a few things about the statement that were worth noting, but one in particular stood out.  “So you thought I was here only to gain your favor for Vishkar and you still let me stay?”

He shrugged and gave her a smile, dulled significantly by the mood but there all the same.  “You seemed like you genuinely wanted to help.”  And then, apologetically, “I should have made sure you knew.”

“You didn’t know.”  She wasn’t interested in letting him feel guilty about things he couldn’t possibly have been aware of, particularly ones that didn’t matter anymore.

He sighed deeply as he went on, clearly going over a list of things in his head, ticking off a mental checklist.  “At any rate, we have pieced some things together, in terms of the bigger picture.  Reinhardt received a strange message about a week ago.  Something about his armor, improvements that needed to be made to it, supposedly from Brigitte, his armorer.  When we followed up she didn’t know what we were talking about, but everything else seemed quiet so we didn’t think much of it aside from the fact that we needed to make sure she was safe.”  He took in another long breath.  “She’s back at the base with us, now.”  His voice dropped to a distracted mutter as he realized something.  “Soon we’ll start running out of room.”

She paused for a long moment, staring out to the horizon before the breath she had been holding released, her voice reduced to a grim murmur as the realization dawned on her, loud enough but not ready to be heard. 

“Divide and conquer.”

Winston looked up from the controls to glance at her, his brow furrowed in thick lines of concern.  He understood the meaning but seemed to want her to give more detail as he trained his eyes forwards again, his voice lowered to something bleak but kind.

“Please, elaborate.”

“ _I_ was the stipulation.  With Vishkar.  They wanted me there because without me they would not get their money.”  She wasn’t sure how she came to it but the connection made sense.  It was the only thing that did.  Despite how little she cared for the company and despite her wishes to never be contacted by them again it still pierced her and she had to close her eyes against the unwelcome sensation, both hands curling into tight fists atop her thighs.  She took in careful breaths through her nose and released them just as slowly, her own brow knitted as she tried to puzzle out the remaining details.

She had had friends… colleagues there.  Her mind gently provided the idea that they couldn’t have known.  Few, if any, would have.  Except Sanjay.  And even he likely didn’t know the full extent of why.

It didn’t matter.  The mere thought of him threatened to light a flame of rage in her.  She used the words to distract herself.

“Someone offered Vishkar money with the condition that I must leave Overwatch.  Someone attempted to lure Reinhardt away with Brigitte.  Jamison…”  She closed her eyes more tightly, hesitating before opening them again stubbornly.  “Someone funded the bounty hunters to capture Jamison.  Maybe they also thought they could also get Roadhog one way or another if he came after them.”

She glanced towards Winston.  She knew it wasn’t the case.  She knew Overwatch would never allow it, but the mere thought of it had begun to eat at her, making her feel as though without the reassurance there wouldn’t be anything left.  “Someone thinks, or at least hopes, that we won’t come after him.”

She wasn’t sure if he detected the need in her voice but he answered firmly.  “They’re wrong.”

It lifted a weight off of her and she smiled weakly to him, the expression unseen, and allowed her eyes to go unfocused, pointed blankly in front of herself in the near-distance.

Someone had tried very hard to kill them, or at least some of them both at Egypt and Numbani.  The same people who wanted the omics dead.  And when they hadn’t succeeded they apparently had decided on a different tack.

“If I had been there…”

“If you had been there you might be gone, too.  This isn’t your fault.”  He released a resigned sigh with the words.  “If anyone’s, it’s mine.  We should have seen it coming.  Maybe not the exact scenario, but we shouldn’t have gone in the way we did.”

“You’ve done the best you can with such limited resources and against odds we don’t even know the extent of.  I don’t think anyone could possibly blame you.”

He smiled, an expression that seemed weary and halfhearted.  “Thank you, Satya.”  There was a pause as they both looked out towards the horizon before he spoke again.

“At any rate, if they really aren’t expecting us we’ll be able to give them a nice surprise.” 

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they reached the satellite base in Cairo everyone else had already gathered, tipped off on their arrival time by Lena.  The meeting had a somber air to it but everyone seemed energized with a sense of purpose.  They had only had a scant time to regroup but they all seemed more than ready to take immediate action.  They just had to be pointed in the right direction.

Roadhog was present, covered in a patchwork of bandages and with a large patch sewn into the side of his mask where a piece had been ripped out.  He had folded his arms over his chest during the whole of it and remained completely silent.  Apparently he felt he had already given out the information that he needed to.  He healed remarkably quickly if his condition was any indication, but she thought she could feel an undercurrent of restless tension from him.  It wasn’t as though they had exchanged that many words, but she felt a strong pull to try to speak with him.  She wasn’t sure if it would help either of them or not.

By all accounts it seemed as though whoever had taken Jamison had been waiting for and targeting him specifically and Roadhog’s assertion that they were bounty hunters seemed to be the most likely explanation.

They had been investigating the disappearance of some of Helix International’s rocket suits, following up on their investigation with the archaeologists.  It hadn’t seemed like a mission that would need much firepower, but they had learned to be cautious.  Still, it apparently wasn’t enough, but they weren’t expecting anything like this.

Jamison had stayed back on defense with Roadhog closeby.  They had separated him from the group somehow, even Roadhog wasn’t entirely sure how, there had been a firefight, and then they had simply taken him away, leaving nothing but craters in the street from the explosions of mines and grenades and the walls pocked with the shrapnel from Roadhog’s gun.

It seemed like they had been very well prepared, as if they were waiting.

If that were the case she couldn’t help but wonder how they knew he would be there on an Overwatch mission, or how whoever it was knew Overwatch would be there at all.  And even then, the connection to Jamison.  His association with Overwatch shouldn’t be publicly known or else they wouldn’t have bothered with the archaeology mission.  They had been fairly careful to keep it hidden.  Even Satya’s presence had been kept as quiet as possible, and likely wouldn’t be known save for observant people noting her absence from Vishkar, and even then the connection between her and Overwatch would be tenuous.

How had they known he would even be there?

She didn’t hear much of what was being said in the debriefing.  It seemed like all of the important things had already been covered and she was lost in her own thoughts, unaware of the narrowing of her eyes as an undercurrent of anger began to develop in her body, tensing her shoulders.

The simple fact was someone knew he was in Overwatch and they knew Overwatch would be there.

A thought suddenly occurred to her almost calmly and she lifted her eyes, interrupting whatever it was that was being said.  Her eyes were directed towards Roadhog but her tone, despite the undercurrent of anger, invited anyone to answer.

“How many did you say there were at Numbani?  That we… dispatched.”  The word seemed gentler than ‘killed’, even if she didn’t think they deserved the kindness.

Roadhog shifted in his seat, his topknot swaying as he readjusted his arms across his chest, leaning heavily against the back of the chair.

“Sixteen.”  It was the first thing he had said in quite some time and his voice sounded hoarse, moreso than usual.

Her eyes focused on nothing in the mid-distance, narrowing a bit further.  The conversation was difficult to recall, but she latched onto it stubbornly and attempted to drag the memory out.  Torbjörn and Roadhog in the hallway.  Jamison walking dazedly behind.

“Torbjörn… how many did we count?”  He hadn’t been there, she realized.  But she remembered his comment all the same.

“… fifteen.”

The breath she took was deep to fight against the rapid thud of her heart as it grew louder in her chest and she was certain, as she had been before.  The voice she had heard at Numbani—the American one—belonged to someone who was still very much alive.  Who had likely escaped in the chaos.  Someone who knew Satya, Jamison, and Roadhog were with Overwatch and had decided they would be the best links in the chain to remove, one way or another.  Winston’s voice drifted to her as he addressed Torbjörn, out of focus as her mind stubbornly remained elsewhere.

“Is that accurate?”

“Yes.”

“So there might have been someone who got out.”

The question pulled her out of her thoughts and she cut in again.  “The American.  The ringleader.”  Her eyes locked with Winston’s.  “I’m sure of it.”

There was a brief silence before Winston pulled in a deep sigh and his rumbling voice followed soon after.  “I guess we have a new person of interest.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was only two days later that Fareeha contacted them with information.  Her voice was clipped and official over the comm system, her military training standing out clearly in the way she spoke.  They had a lead, and a good one.  Jamison, apparently, made a lot of noise and his being dragged away hadn’t gone unnoticed.  She shouldn’t have been surprised.  That in combination with the comings and goings of new faces, even with it being in the industrial district, had given them the tips that they needed.  Unfamiliar people acting suspiciously and, more importantly, nervous.  Regardless of whether or not they had targeted the correct group it was worth looking into, and given that it was their only lead it seemed like putting all of their resources into it was the best option.

It needed to be quiet; there was no point going in guns blazing, it might simply turn into a hostage situation, so they gathered what information about the building plans that they could and pinpointed areas he may most likely be kept and their options for entry.  There would be a couple of infiltrators but everyone else would be on standby, not far off, waiting should anything go south.

Satya was going.  Even if she weren’t one of the defaults for her infiltration abilities she would have been going all the same—she would have insisted on it, and no one seemed to even have the thought of trying to say otherwise.  Lena would be her second.  Fareeha had kindly offered her assistance by placing sentries on the rooftops near each exit.  Regardless of what happened inside, the bounty hunters wouldn’t be getting out.

Winston had tried to dissuade Roadhog from going—he was too large, to noticeable, too loud—but the big man had taken on an eerie silence under the mask that insisted he was going and dared anyone to say otherwise.  They would find a way to make him work. 

They adjusted plans as necessary, opting to place him near their entry point with Mercy at his side, ready to offer either medical support or a distraction at a word from either Satya or Lena.  It was a good arrangement ultimately, one that she hoped wouldn’t be necessary but felt more comfortable having.

Roadhog, for his part, wasn’t thrilled at his lack of direct involvement but seemed to accept his role silently and without the tension she could see in the curve of his shoulders before.

It was settled.  Enter through a side door, investigate their key locations, and incapacitate any of the bounty hunters they came across by any means necessary.  Finding Jamison and getting him to safety was the priority.  The cleanup or roundup of the bounty hunters could happen afterward, whatever that ended up entailing.  She found she didn’t much care what the results were, so long as it ended with Jamison being back at base.

All they needed was their opportunity to get into the building.  It came about more easily than she would have expected with nothing but patient observation.  A guard stepped outside, sucking on a cigarette.  By all accounts he seemed to be alone.  It provided them all of the opportunity they needed.

Lena zipped behind him and gave him a good whack with the butt of one of her pistols, sending him to the ground.  It was simple enough, and Satya followed to the door a moment after.  Roadhog took his position at the door with Mercy standing close by, out of sight.

It was a good sign that the guard had been alone; it seemed as though the bounty hunters weren’t expecting visitors, but he was also very well-armed, which was less encouraging.  At any rate someone would come looking for him eventually.  At this point they were racing against the clock.

They split up once inside to better meter their time, Lena darting in one direction down the hallway after a shared nod of affirmation before Satya began her way up the other.  She could hear the sounds of the building’s inhabitants talking, the occasional raucous laugh and yell, but despite it her ears caught on something else: the quiet tap of footsteps not far ahead of her.  Strangely the anger building in her chest was helping to hone her focus in, sharpen her senses, and she slipped immediately behind a stack of crates as his shadow rounded the corner and began moving toward her.  She breathed slowly.  The photon projector was in her hand, but after a moment she gently slipped it into its holster instead.  There were better ways, perhaps.

She watched him as he passed by almost curiously.  In some objective ways he looked a bit like Jamison—tattooed, sun-kissed, hair somewhat long and in disarray.  Rough.  But there was something in the set of his jaw, the angles of his face, and the look in his eyes that that marked him as clearly different.

The bounty hunter walked past.  She moved quickly.  He noticed her too late.

The gentle blue glow of hard-light formed into a thin blade in her hand as she swept silently around the corner and immediately found the curve of his throat, her gauntlet covering his mouth.  The thought of having him so close disgusted her but she turned it to steel in her voice as she pulled the man’s body back towards herself.  The photon projector was much preferred.  But she needed the information he had and a knife seemed far more likely to get the point across.

She noted his hand moving to the gun at his side and gave him a single-word command that was icy in its inflection: “Don’t.”

He stopped, going perfectly still save for shallow breaths against the knife’s edge.  There was no need to mince words.

“Where are you holding him.” 

It was a command, not a question, and she lifted her gauntlet away from him to curl under his chin, pulling it upwards to better expose the entire length of his throat to the blade.  She could feel the sneer on his lips as she took it away.  He didn’t answer immediately save for a grunt that she determined to be rebellious and she pressed a bit harder, angling the blade with the motion so that it cut only slightly through his skin.

“I don’t know what—”

His accent was clear: Australian, the words uttered in a thick drawl.  She lowered her voice, maintaining the slow-burning calm that had settled into her.

“I will not ask again.”

His voice was strangled when he answered and she could feel him swallow against the blade at his skin.  The pause was long.  For a moment she thought she might simply have to kill him.

“Down the hall… to the left.”

“How far?”

“I dunno…”

There was no point in further words.  She pulled the blade away from his body, simultaneously pulling away from him and he reached immediately for the gun at his side as he twisted his body to turn towards her with the weapon raised.

She knew it was coming.  Her hands had already swept in front of herself to weave a thin blue shield in a delicate motion and the bullets bounced harmlessly off of it with a gentle _pip pip pip_ as he emptied the magazine, the faintest of cracks developing in the shield before she abruptly dropped it.  He was weaponless now.  The shots would draw attention, she knew.  Perhaps she could have simply killed him.  But he had other uses.

He had begun trying to back away down the hallway as his hands struggled to place another magazine into the gun but within a moment she was too close for it to matter and in one quick motion found the grip the photon projector, jamming the front of it against his side and pulling the trigger.  The man’s body jerked and he fell to the ground.  Incapacitated briefly, unconscious but not dead, though she wouldn’t mind the alternative.  Silently and efficiently, she wove a binding around the man’s wrists and ankles and turned her attention to the hallway around herself.  There were others who would no doubt be coming, she knew, and while a part of her had vested interest in confronting them directly she knew it was not a risk she should take.  Not until she had Jamison, at least.

Her eyes moved swiftly across the walls and ceilings for optimal placements and she wove a net of turrets both up and down the hallway from the man’s body, far enough away that he wouldn’t trigger them, leaving him in the middle as bait.  Hopefully some of them would take it.

Lena’s voice came through the comms a moment later.  “You alright, love?”

“Yes.  Although we may have lost our element of stealth.  I believe I know where he is, though.  It might be best to confront those you encounter.  Roadhog, be ready.”

Roadhog’s voice rumbled a wordless affirmation in her ear.  It wasn’t quite to plan, but it would have to do.  All that was left was to find Jamison.

She kept the photon projector in hand as she moved down the rest of the hallway slowly to keep her steps quiet, her senses on alert.  Muffled voices, loud and urgent, floated down the hallway but none seemed near enough for immediate concern.  There were more of them than she had expected, more than the team had expected, and she wondered at it as she moved.  Whatever Jamison had found must be worth quite a bit if this many of them were willing to band together even temporarily to find it.  Or their incentive from whoever had funded this venture had been quite a lot.  Possibly some of both.

The buzzing sound of her turrets reached her ears mere moments later paired with the sound of screams before it all went quiet once again.  Despite herself she found it grimly satisfying, although one voice continued—the man she had restrained, yelling loudly.  He would no doubt draw further attention, and the next group would not so easily fall victim to the turrets.  It was time to move.

“Winston, we may need Roadhog’s distraction.  Give me just a moment.”

Her steps remained calm as she continued down the hallway, photon projector in hand.  A passageway cut off to the left.

She pulled herself back against the wall with a slow breath to listen but there was no sound from the space around the corner and she leaned forward to look, the photon projector still in hand.  It was empty.  And there was a door.

Before moving to it she placed another turret quickly in case someone might manage to come up from behind her and she swept around the corner, examining the door closely, finding the entire scene to be bare and rather grim.  She craned her neck and called through the door, her ear pressed against it for a response. 

“Jamison?”

There was a pause before she heard his voice. 

“… your voice has changed, mate.  Much higher pitched.  Might want to get that looked at.”  It sounded no different than it ever did save for the note of weariness to it and the sound of a quiet giggle made its way from under the door.  She took it as a good sign. 

“You’ll want to get away from the door if possible.”

It took very little work to cut her way through.  The photon projector might have its weaknesses, but a simple metal door was not one of them.  She could hear the sound of shuffling before she managed to cut entirely through and hesitated before the cut was completely finished, letting go of the trigger. 

He had managed to get himself upright and was looking at the remains of the door before he lifted his eyes towards her with a heavy blink.  He looked exhausted and quite a bit worse for wear but his lips began curling slowly upwards at the sight of her, eventually taking on the form of a wide grin.  He was missing a tooth.

“Well, this is unexpected.”

Her relief at seeing him was overwhelming and she had to carefully tamp it down to nothing but a breath exhaled from deep in her chest before her mind re-focused on her purpose, her eyes searching over the room carefully for any important details as she spoke.

“Are you alright?”  And then, looking him over more closely.  “Relatively.”  She’d found nothing of concern in the room and had begun to move towards him, wincing slightly with the words.  “You’re missing a tooth.”

“Might not’ve lost it if I hadn’t kept fiddlin’ with it. I’ve got it in me pocket.  Figured I’d keep it as a nice reminder of my time here.  Or to put it back in, whichever works better.”

His prosthetic arm and leg were nowhere to be seen.  It wasn’t something she was particularly concerned about.  They could find them later.

She smiled helplessly under a deeply furrowed brow and clung to the expression even though her focus ought to be elsewhere.  She honed it in carefully on his condition.  On their escape.  Nearly having forgotten, she lifted a hand to her communicator.

“I’ve got him.”

Winston’s voice came through with a relieved sigh.

“Good.  Everything should be clear for extraction.  Roadhog, you’re up.”

There was nothing but an affirmative grunt before the comm went silent and she turned her attention back to Jamison, who was looking at her patiently.

“Can you walk?”

“Generally?  Only on me better days.  Think they decided to rearrange somethin’ in my knee but I can probably manage half of it.”

Her eyes narrowed gently as she attempted to maneuver around him.  It wasn’t the time for humor but her mind supplied the thought that perhaps it was something he needed and there was no need for her to chide him for it despite the impulse.

He sucked in a breath of air with a heavy wince, one eye narrowing nearly until closed as she slipped underneath his right arm, avoiding disturbing the left as much as possible as it dangled lifelessly at his side, his forearm twisted at an odd angle.  It was broken, she knew, and fairly badly, and she could feel a dull pain in her chest at the thought of it.

It didn’t take much to convert the feeling into anger, a growing rage that was beginning to fill her as she curled an arm around his torso to help stabilize him, her other hand holding what she could of his missing arm at the elbow.

From his new vantage point he could see down the hallway and craned his neck to look at the destruction she had left behind.

“Seems like you went through a lot of trouble.”  The laugh that strangled its way from his chest was more of a wheeze. 

She answered idly, distractedly, though she glanced from the hallway up to what she could see of his features.  It threatened to calm her down, and calm wasn’t something she wanted at the moment. 

“It was a bit of effort, yes.”

“Careful, I might start to think you like me.”

Despite it all she had to resist a laugh, smothering it until it was nothing but an amused-sounding hum.  Her smile was out of his range of sight but was audible in her voice, the tease offered quietly and without any feeling.  “Don’t get any ideas.”

Given his height there was no way for her to properly carry him.  His good foot helped only minimally, the hobbling motion clearly jarring his arm with each step, and so she did her best to shift him, making a small sound of effort as she bore his weight nearly fully on her shoulders, paired with a hissed ‘ah!’ of pain from him as his left arm jerked with the motion.  But she glanced to the side to see him biting his lip hard, his features exhausted, a subdued giggle still erupting from his throat as if he couldn’t control it.

“Got meself a knight in shining armor.”  His voice lifted, rolling over the words playfully.  “Funny though.  Thought you’d be taller.”

“Hush.  We need to focus on getting you out of here.”

“Sorry.  Didn’t have the best conversation partners for the past couple of days.”  He paused, looking at her questioningly.  “Kinda don’t have a great handle on what’s typical anymore, do they usually knock ya around?”

The single laugh that escaped from her sounded desperate and her smile was weak as she replied, her focus still on the corridor ahead of her and the weight of him on her shoulders.  “I think that might just be you.”

“Makes sense.”

He went silent as they shuffled along, putting effort into his steps with the occasional strained grunt and hiss of air when he wrenched his knee or shifted his arm particularly badly.

“I missed ya, y’know.”

The words were sudden and clear.  Despite her focus her eyes flitted up to him and she found his features to be quiet and pleasantly subdued, his eyes pointed forward still, the faintest of smiles on his lips.  It was a soft expression, possibly made that way just from the exhaustion.  But she didn’t think so.  If she thought too long about it she would know.  She made a sound of acknowledgment, the slightest hint of a question in it.  She’d wanted to respond properly, but… there was too much else.  He interpreted the way she’d hoped and didn’t seem at all to mind.

“Yeah.  Wasn’t the same.”

Her fingers curled as she clung to him more tightly and she smiled.  Despite the awkward hobble required for them to move the weight of him felt strangely welcome and the warmth of him soothing.  She clung to that.

Lena appeared daring around the corner only a moment later, her pistols drawn, and when she saw the two of them she stopped with widened eyes and a beaming smile that only seemed dampened slightly by his condition.

“Jamison!  It’s so good to see you!”  There was a genuine fondness to her expression as she looked behind them and, upon seeing the hallway was empty, stuffed her pistols back in her holsters.  The sound of Roadhog’s gun shooting debris in powerful rounds echoed down the hallway punctuated by his deep, rumbling laughter.  It seemed endless, the seconds ticking by as they waited, the screams of assailants as they were caught in the wake of it, and when it finally ended it was completely silent.  She could hear the soft sigh come from Jamison before he mumbled weakly to no one in particular.

“Ah.  That’s me Hog.  Good on’ya, mate.”

While they were stopped Jamison had shifted his weight, shuffling his foot closer to her and leaning more heavily on her.  She could feel the strain of his muscles against her shoulders and she could tell he needed it.  It would be best to move on quickly.

“I believe the path is clear.”

Lena nodded, her head bobbing in agreement.  “Want me to take his other shoulder?”

Her mind flitted back to the guard she had left in the corridor and she thought about it for only a moment before taking a slow breath, allowing her body to nestle back into his, the weight distributed evenly enough to be comfortable.

“It’s alright.  I have him.”  Lena tipped her head to the side, looking doubtful, and she elaborated as her fingers pressed against his skin more tightly.  “There’s a guard, I left him tied up.  We will need to retrieve him.  Would you check behind us to make sure there aren’t more?”

Lena smiled accommodatingly and flicked her pistols back into her hands, spinning them playfully as she cocked her head to the side, her weight on her heels.  “My pleasure, love.  Roadhog should be here soon, he knows where you’re at.”

 

* * *

 

It was a relief to be in the dropship and she felt like she might collapse simply from mental exhaustion.  Roadhog had helped take Jamison’s weight off of her shoulders a fair distance down the corridor and once they reached the ship had set him down in one of the chairs where he sat, propped up by the constraints, long leg splayed out far in front of himself and his arm curled in his lap.

She sat down beside him with a deep sigh and let her head fall back against the headrest as she looked at him from the corners of her eyes for just a moment before letting them slip closed, her body turned just slightly towards him, her hands folded in her own lap.  Mercy did a very brief assessment before deciding most of his injuries would best be treated back at the base and performed some triage that left his arm in a sling.  The tooth was saved for later.

Once satisfied that everyone was settled and everything had been wrapped up, Winston popped his head into the transport ship to let them know they could start back to the base.  The rest of the team would stay for cleanup and investigation, excusing herself, Roadhog, and Mercy to start the ride back.

Roadhog made a suggestion at Mercy’s request, indicating the stretcher with a toss of his thumb over his shoulder but Jamison refused in a tired voice, smiling all the same. 

“You should lie down.”

“Nah mate, I’m fine here.”

The large man rolled a slow, agreeable shrug along his shoulders but raised his hand to push Jamison’s shoulder gently but firmly back against the seat in an unspoken command and moved across the dropship to find a seat of his own.

It wasn’t long before she closed her eyes in exhaustion.  And it wasn’t long before she felt a warmth at her side as his body tipped toward her, his shoulders coming to rest just above her own as he slumped to the side.  He had lifted his head to tuck her own under his chin with a deep sigh as his body finally relaxed.  She could feel his breath on her hair, deep and calm, and after a moment shifted her own weight to readjust him so that his head rested high up on her shoulder, the strands of his hair against her cheek.  It wasn’t necessarily comfortable but she wasn’t interested in moving and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift off to the sound of his soft snores.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it was sorta a jerk thing of me to do to put in a cliffhanger and then not update for like a week later but I kinda went through Some Shit so please pardon the delay. At any rate you don't have to worry about more cliffhangers. The next one is already like half done but that was the case with this chapter too so haha whoops sorry.... still, I hope to have it out soon.
> 
> As always thanks for reading!


	23. Chapter 23

They’d arrived back at base late and Jamison had been shuffled immediately off to the medical bay with Mercy, leaving Satya to stumble to her own bed.  Despite her less than clean condition she was simply too tired to shower.  It could wait until morning.

Even if her sleep was a bit uneasy it felt as though it was the best she had gotten in quite some time and she woke without the tension she had felt in her body for so long.

A shower was the first point of order.  But after that it was Jamison.

She found him still in the medical bay, seated at the edge of a bed while Mercy stood in front of him, her hands working delicately on the wrappings around his broken forearm—a cast, she realized, spanning the length of his forearm and wrapped around both his wrist and his elbow, nearly complete.

He looked much better than when they had found him, although the brighter atmosphere of the med bay also brought to light the bruising on his face, the swelling gone and the color already fading likely due to Mercy’s treatment.  It was something he seemed to be fully unconcerned with regardless.  She imagined all of it would heal pretty quickly.  A testament to Mercy’s abilities.

In the unbruised areas there was a color to his cheeks that was relieving, as was the way his body perked up as he saw her and the bright, wide-eyed smile that lit up his face.  He was resilient, she would have to give him that.  He lifted the metal arm to wave enthusiastically while Mercy cast him a disparaging look as she attended to the cast on his broken limb.  The prosthetic caught, raised stiffly for a moment before he fixed it with a look of displeasure and a quiet noise of frustration and straightened it, the motion clearing whatever jam had occurred in the workings.  Mercy prodded him gently in the side with a knuckle.

“Sit still.”

He gave her an exaggerated wince as he lowered his prosthetic hand back to the edge of the bed.  A subdued grin chased after it, showcasing the still-missing tooth.

“See what I’m dealin’ with here?  Different captor, same treatment.”  His lips curled over the words good-naturedly and settled at an angle that suggested a pre-emptive apology.

Mercy for her part only released a deep sigh less convincing than the faint smile on her features and didn’t bother responding, instead raising her head away from the work to glance toward Satya for a moment, flashing her a much brighter smile. 

“Hello, Satya.  It’s good to see you.  I’m glad you stopped by, actually… I didn’t get much of a chance to look you over.  Are you feeling alright?”

Satya let her eyes drift from Jamison to Mercy and stood a bit more easily, her hip cocked to the side.

“Yes.  I’m fine, although if you would like we could do a checkup.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary, though of course please let me know if you need anything.  I’m just finishing up with Jamison, which would be easier if he could behave himself.”

Jamison’s eyes shifted up towards the ceiling in a look of obvious guilt as his body stiffened in an apparent effort to sit perfectly still.  He mumbled something, too low to hear, and adopted a sullen look.  Satya couldn’t help the smirk that took over her lips.

“You’re looking better.”

Jamison’s eyes shifted to her and seemed to widen a bit as the smile returned.  “Hope so.  Doc’s been working on me all morning.  Barely gave me a chance to sleep.”

Mercy lifted her eyes to him with a warning look and he grinned at her again, chin tipped to the side, a pleasant curve to his lips.  If his good spirits were any indication he was recovering well.

“Unfortunately you aren’t done.  You have to speak with Winston after this, given that he didn’t get the chance to debrief you last night.  I’d imagine it might take some time.”

Jamison’s voice pitched up in a loud, exaggerated groan.  Mercy laughed gently.

“I think you’ll survive.”

“Just thought torture was over is all.”  The pout didn’t last; Jamison’s lips curled upwards in a slow, more subdued grin and his fingers started to tap against the edge of the bed before the glanced down towards them, willing them to be still.  Mercy went on without disturbance.

“After that you should eat.  Something healthy, please.  You won’t heal on biscuits and boba alone.”

“Yeah fine, I’ll eat somethin’ good for me, promise.”

Mercy sounded doubtful as she sighed, her hands moving away from the wrappings as she quickly swept them over a towel to dry them.

“Satya, would you be willing to hold him to that?  I’m afraid I have other things to attend to, and he might listen to you moreso than me.”

The statement struck her as strange but not untrue and she considered it for a moment before glancing towards Jamison with a gently raised eyebrow.  He was staring back, features blank, and so she fixed him with a smile that held the faintest traces of self-satisfaction.

“Certainly.  I’m sure we can come to an agreeable solution.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I have no idea how you talked me into this.”

Satya’s tone was hard to mistake as anything other than exhaustion and he bared his teeth in a grin that was far from apologetic.

“Doc’s orders, right?  Eatin’ healthy and rest and relaxation I think.  Can’t really remember though, can you?  Probably should’ve had her write me a note again.”

They had slipped out to the training yard in search of a grassy spot overlooking the sea at Jamison’s request.  Roadhog had taken the prosthetic arm for repairs for an hour or so and minus the metal limb and with the other stuck, bent at the elbow in a thin cast and a sling, he felt a bit unsteady on his feet but after a short adjustment period with a bit of wavering his balance became fairly solid and had little trouble walking beside her.  Sitting was a different story.  He opted to flop down as gracelessly as possible onto the grass with a grunt, his legs curled slightly to offset his weight.  He turned to watch her sink gently to the ground beside him, a bowl in her hand and an exasperated sigh escaping her.  He couldn’t tell how much truth was in it but he suspected it was mostly show.  And she was there, after all.

“It was kind of Mercy to let you out of bed at all, although I get the feeling you’ve never been good at staying there.”

His teeth sunk into his cheek as he refrained from comment, carefully toeing around the first thought that had popped into his head.  He opted for a secondary thought instead.

“Sittin’ in a bed is boring.  And Roadie doesn’t like it much when I look over his shoulder so I figure it’s better to just let him work alone.  Didn’t leave me with a lot of options.”

She had settled in with her legs crossed over one-another and he watched as she plucked a single grape from the bowl she’d placed on the ground beside her.  The look she gave him was expectant if entirely unenthused and he gave her a broad smile before turning and flopping backwards so that the back of his head landed squarely in her lap.  She seemed even less pleased being essentially trapped underneath the weight of him, but the gentle shake of her head, the way her eyes slipped closed, and the faintest hint of a smile he detected at the corner of her lips suggested it all wasn’t _so_ bad.

“I cannot _believe_ I’m doing this.”

“Please?  I’ve always wanted to.  Feeds into my hedonistic tendencies.”  His grin was wide and crooked and showed off his gold tooth.  And the gap where one used to be.  It hadn’t been fixed yet.  He had other priorities.

“You owe me, doubly now.”

“Indentured servitude it is, then.”

She sighed deeply but held the grape up above his face and he shuffled the curve of his shoulders as best he could against that of her legs, remarkably comfortable and a beaming excitement on his face that he was doing his best to subdue without much success.  She raised an eyebrow, quirked it upwards in a high arc, and rather than aiming for his open mouth she dropped the grape pointedly on his forehead where it bounced off and rolled away into the grass beside them.  He did his best impression of looking hurt.

 “C’mon, I’m injured.  I haven’t got any hands.”

Apparently it worked.  She took a breath and her expression fell flat as she lifted another grape and dropped it neatly in his mouth.  It was, frankly, perfect, and everything he expected it to be.  He looked about as thrilled as he felt with the ridiculousness of it and closed his eyes as he chewed the thing happily.  When he opened them to look up at her he could swear there were traces of a smile on her lips, subdued as they might be, and he grinned as toothily as he could, gap in his teeth and all.

“Thanks.  All I’ve ever wanted.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, top ten anyway.”

“You can’t _possibly_ rank this that highly.”

“It’s just like in all the old movies.  Point is, this is best thing I’ve experienced all week.”

“That’s not a very high standard.”  But her expression seemed to soften, or at least the edge of wryness seemed to drift away as she looked down at him for a moment longer before plucking another grape from the bowl and holding it above him for a moment before dropping it, too, in his mouth.  “I suppose it’s not so terrible, though.”

She went quiet after the words in a way that seemed pensive, watching him.  It was thrilling and a little bit terrifying all at once and he stared back wide-eyed as if worried he might miss something.  The silence felt like it was going on a bit too long and he curled his toes in his boot as a distraction before taking in a slow breath.  It was territory he would have to visit at some point, however much he didn’t want to.  Despite his attempt not to let the question affect his expression he could feel the smile dullen and winced a bit against it, doing his best to even the look out.

“Guess you’re gonna be headed back to Vishkar soon, yeah?”

It was inevitable probably, the way her eyes drifted abruptly away.  The way she plucked the grape from the vine seemed more like something to do with her hands than anything else and with her eyes elsewhere his expression slipped, the smile fading completely as he watched her, unable quite to figure out what answer was prompting the troubled look on her face.

“No.” 

It wasn’t what he was expecting.  A strange sort of elation welled up in his chest but was quickly dragged down by something else.  She didn’t seem pleased about it.  He wasn’t sure what that meant, so he cleared his throat gently and tried to find something to say.  It felt a bit too much like walking a tightrope, which wasn’t in his general skillset, but honesty didn’t seem like a terrible place to start.  His voice was hesitant as he felt out the words carefully, watching her closely for a reaction.

“Can’t say I’m too upset to hear it…”

Her eyes fell back to him but her expression hadn’t changed and she didn’t offer any reply so he changed tack, fixing her with a faint grin that looked distinctly guilty and a little bit embarrassed.

“Gotta admit though, if I’d known I probably wouldn’t’ve guilted you into doin’ this.  Sorta figured I’d try to make the best of my time.” 

He considered the quiet huff of air that escaped from her a victory, close enough to a laugh especially when paired with the small, dry smile, and she raised the grape in a prompt he easily understood, opening his mouth and snagging it from the air as she dropped it.  Chewing on it was a good excuse to be quiet and try to think of something else to say but she went on without him.

“Vishkar… it’s not what I thought it was.”  She was looking at him but in a way that made it seem like she wasn’t entirely seeing him as she went on, her eyes unfocused and her expression abruptly turning somber.  “I learned some things.  Things I should have known.  Maybe I did.”

She paused, her eyes drifting to the space above his head, and he was too busy searching her face to notice the movement of her hands until he felt the gentle pull of her fingers moving through his hair.  Carding through it slowly.  He froze, eyes widening slightly as she brushed through the strands in a movement that seemed absentminded.  It took some effort to regroup and focus himself on the conversation, something he only achieved by closing his eyes tightly for a moment, taking a deep breath, and looking up towards the sky instead of back at her, still listening intently.

“I think… they might have done some horrible things.”  Her voice had lowered to a subdued tone of distress and he felt his jaw tightening as she went on.  “I think I was a part of that.” 

It took him a moment.  He watched her thoughtfully, a crease working its way onto his brow. 

“Hmm.”  The sound vibrated in his chest, deeper than he’d meant for it to be and distinctly doubtful.  “Doesn’t sound like you.  Not like somethin’ you’d do on purpose, anyway.”

She lifted her eyes to his in a way that looked uncertain and questioning.  He pushed down the urge to shuffle uncomfortably and kept still, nodding silently to himself instead as his teeth worked at the inside of his cheek.

“Yeah.  Far as I can tell you’ve only ever tried to do right by people.  Even if I… uh.  Haven’t agreed with some of it.”

She had leaned forward slightly over him as if to better look at him but her eyes flitted away with the murmur, her hand lifting and sweeping back the hair that had fallen over her shoulder.

“You’re being too forgiving.”

The shrug that rolled over his shoulders came easily but he glanced away for a moment.

“… I reckon we’ve all done some things we shouldn’t’ve.”  The topic brushed a little too closely to questions about his own record… which he still wasn’t fully certain of her knowledge about or opinion on.  He suddenly thought he shouldn’t have brought it up and cleared his throat quietly before going on.

“Point is people like that got a way of gettin’ in your head.  Never did like suits much, meself.  Haven’t met an honest one yet.”

“Perhaps.”  She didn’t sound remotely certain but it had been worth a try.

He chanced a look back to her.  She was watching him, features soft and thoughtful, and he realized a moment later that he was staring and couldn’t be bothered to stop.  She broke the gaze first but without any apparent rush, straightening and looking instead at some point in the mid-distance.  She inhaled and released it as a slow sigh with an emotion that he couldn’t quite define.

“I shouldn’t have left.”

He took a breath to match hers and swallowed as she pulled her fingers away to pluck another grape in a way that seemed automatic. 

_I thought about you.  Every day._  

Too risky.  Better not.

“You had reasons.”

“No.”  There was a pause and she lowered her eyes back to him and repeated the words more firmly.  They seemed like there was something to them.  Some kind of meaning.  “I shouldn’t have left.”

He could see her working through some thought, her jaw tensing and her eyes closing before she opened them again, her expression evening out.  It seemed like it had taken her some effort, as if she were working to shake the weight of the conversation off, and the words were a little slow to come but they seemed to ease some of the tension.  Her voice was dry but her lips were fighting a smile that he could swear had a look of fondness to it.

“You realize I am never doing this again.” 

A low and thoughtful hum escaped him as he considered her words before offering an alternative.  “I’ll just have to get kidnapped more often.”

Her eyes narrowed as she dropped another grape on his face.  “Don’t you dare.”

He couldn’t help the broad grin that spread across his features and the high-pitched giggle that chased after it.  Both were forcibly subdued when her hands returned to the wild, uneven threads of his hair.  It pulled the breath out of him as a tension he hadn’t noticed was there seeped out of his shoulders, her fingertips briefly brushing against his scalp drawing a small, low noise from him and there was only the slightest pause before the words slipped out of him natural-like, like he couldn’t have stopped them at all even if he tried, easy as breathing and just as inevitable as he looked up at her, eyes half-lidded.

“Y’know I’m crazy about ya, right?”

The fingers carding through his hair slowed to a halt.  She stared down at him, her lips parting slightly, wordless.  It was a look he couldn’t immediately pinpoint but he could recognize it as one thing: not good.  Not what he’d hoped.  The pleasant, comfortable haze that had settled into him cracked and threatened to shatter.

He cringed and willed himself to move but couldn’t do it yet as if by staying he might manage to freeze the moment before it all went to hell but he watched her eyes drop blankly to her lap in the space above his head as she withdrew her hands.

His jaw locked, his teeth gritted in an uncertain grimace, and when she folded her hands close to herself and looked away with slowly widening eyes his voice came out as a nearly-inaudible mumble.  “Aw, fuck.”  And then, a bit more loudly, “Bloody fuckin’ ‘ell.”

The subtle way she readjusted her position away even while he was still in her lap felt like an earthquake and he lifted himself off of her with a grunt to sit, shifting his weight so that he could look at her.  The results were far from promising.  She was clearly trying not to move.  Her hands were balled into fists on her knees.  He bared his teeth in a wince and forced the words out from between them, leaving his voice sounding strained.

“I shouldn’t’a said anything.  _Knew_ I shouldn’t’a said anything.  I just kinda thought…”

Her hands uncurled to carefully smooth down the fabric covering her legs and she closed her eyes but judging from the crease that developed on her brow it wasn’t having the desired effect.

His voice sounded a little bit desperate even to himself and he wasn’t sure if he wanted her to notice or not.

“Look, I didn’t—well I ain’t gonna say I didn’t mean it, but it doesn’t have to mean anything, yeah?”

She was already moving and the answer came immediately, her eyes opening carefully to look half-lidded at the ground in front of herself as she pushed herself to her feet.  “I need to go.”

The shock kept him from saying anything.  The words had scattered his thoughts and he blinked hard, shaking his head as his eyes opened, trying to dislodge the haze in the hopes that he might find one more thing to say, the right thing, but nothing came.  Her voice cut through it, even as quiet as it was.

“Do you need help getting back to the workshop?”

He looked at her.  Not entirely seeing her but wide-eyed all the same, and he gritted his teeth against the wince that was threatening to overtake his features.

“… nah.  I can manage.”

She was avoiding his eyes but she still glanced toward him and, after standing uncertainly for a moment, moved forward anyway.  She moved behind him and slipped under his shoulder, kneeling to accommodate the position before standing and bringing him up with the motion.  He was steady enough in an instant but she lingered for a moment as if making sure he was stable.  The closeness for once felt agonizing and he breathed more quickly when she moved away, still not relieved, unable to feel much of anything.

She was gone before he managed to catch his breath.

He stood there for a moment staring blankly out over the training yard before his eyes happened to drop to his feet and he remembered where he was supposed to go.

Time moved agonizingly slowly as he worked his way back to the workshop.  Everything had felt so right until it very suddenly hadn’t and the shock was rapidly wearing away to expose something else growing underneath it.  Something raw.

Roadhog was sitting at a bench dutifully working on Jamison’s prosthetic arm when he wandered in and the large man stopped, raised his eyes to him, and paused his work, only staring.  It felt either expectant or appraising and for once Jamison felt like he couldn’t tell and the insistent tugging of his mind towards other things didn’t make it any easier to figure it out.  He abandoned the endeavor.  It seemed pointless anyway.  He stood there for a moment staring at Roadhog without seeing him as a low buzz started to weave its way into his thoughts, a kind of static undercurrent that caused his eyes to narrow in a brief squint, something close to a wince.

“What’s up?”

Roadhog’s voice diverted his attention and his eyes pulled back into focus.  The return to reality brought a sudden rush of thoughts back to him and it was almost like he had pressed the accelerator down too hard while it was still in park and suddenly shifted into drive.  It was enough to make him start.  The high pitched giggle that escaped him sounded far too nervous and the grin felt a little wild, but that wasn’t anything that was particularly new.  It just felt a little more off somehow.

“I think I fucked it up, mate.  Really this time.”

He heard the questioning grunt but was still trying to figure out why things felt like they were moving a little too fast before his eyes dropped to the metal arm on the table and his mind latched onto it like it was a lifeboat in the middle of a rapidly worsening sea.

“That arm ready?  I need to hold onto somethin’.”

Roadhog looked down at it for a moment as if the question had caught him off guard, but when he processed it his hands moved briskly.  A few delicate pulls on the inner workings flexed the fingers and flipped the casing shut and pushed down the latches, satisfied enough for now.  Jamison had started to bounce on the ball of his foot, the shocks of the peg-leg creaking, and between the others that were demanding his attention the thought briefly flitted through his mind that it needed to be oiled.

He was a live-wire and it was starting to show.

“Alright, Fawkes.  Time to sit down.”

He turned his eyes moonishly toward Roadhog as if he had forgotten he was there and looked him over as the command failed to fully register.

“Nah mate, I’m a’right.”

“Long enough to put the arm on.  Sit down.”

Jamison blinked, only half understanding, and looked around for a suitable place to sit before dropping down roughly on a chair as directed, eyes straight ahead.  His foot began bouncing against the floor at a quick pace to offset the stillness forced into the rest of his body.  He didn’t notice Roadhog strapping his arm into the prosthetic and he emitted a quiet grunt as he tightened the thing and the fingers abruptly came to life.  They found a pen almost automatically and fiddled it between themselves briefly before it started to tap against the table beside him in rapid cadence.

_What’d I do wrong?  She looked so_ unhappy _._

He tried a deep breath.

“Fawkes.  What happened.”

A high-pitched, reedy laugh that was beginning to sound frantic burst out of him and he recognized his voice as being too loud and far too strained.

“I did me best, mate.”

It was too easy to think and too hard to think straight and it was starting to feel a little too familiar, like something that had happened once or twice before, and he gritted his teeth against the sensation that was building in his chest and threatening to shoot through the rest of him.

_What if she doesn’t wanna talk to me anymore?  What if she decides to leave again anyway?_

It was stupid.  She wasn’t going anywhere, somehow he knew that much at least.  He snarled and pushed the thought away with narrowed eyes but it crept back persistently, somehow becoming more convincing each time. 

Everything had been going so well.  He’d done something wrong, said it wrong maybe.  Or it was just him.  A significant part of him pushed that particular idea insistently.  A smaller part helpfully added that regardless he was never going to have that chance again.

A long, loud sigh wheezed from Roadhog’s mask and Jamison’s ears caught on it, desperate for the distraction. 

“C’mon, let’s go blow some things up.”

The words had barely gotten out before he chased after them with a response.  “Yeah.  A’right.”

The pen dropped from his fingers as he jumped to his feet and darted for his harness, still loaded with grenades, and slipped it over his shoulder before his mechanical fingers found the grip of the frag launcher.  For a second he stood looking off into space as if he’d forgotten what he was doing before Roadhog’s large hand appeared on his shoulder and he jumped back into focus.  Right.  The training yard.

They moved down the hallway, Jamison moving dazedly with Roadhog’s large hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward gently but firmly, the butt of the frag grenade launcher nestled into the crook of his prosthetic arm and Roadhog’s free hand loaded up with mines.

They pointedly avoided the spot where he’d been minutes earlier, too close to the sea and recent memory.  A couple of mines, a couple of training bots blown to smithereens by the frag launcher, and Jamison didn’t feel any better.  It usually took an edge off, made it all quieter, at least a little.

“It ain’t workin’, Hog.”  His voice felt hoarse and high-pitched all at once; the fact that it wasn’t helping made his mouth feel dry.  The tight feeling in his chest was spreading its fingers more insistently and he gritted his teeth against it with an unfitting, too-loud laugh that suddenly sounded a bit manic.  If Roadhog said anything he didn’t notice and he dropped the frag launcher unceremoniously to the ground, looking over to the larger Junker as he pressed the ball of a mechanical palm hard against his own chest, one eye narrowed as he tried to puzzle it out.

“Feels like somebody punched me in the chest real hard, but like, on the insides.  What’s that all about?”  Another laugh, reflexive, as though he were trying to turn it into a joke.  His teeth locked together for a moment and his features tried desperately to pull it into something resembling a grin that he already knew looked more like a grimace and was far too off-balance.  But his tongue kept going.  At least one part of him was working right, even if he didn’t feel quite like he could control it. 

He would have to see her every day and wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.  She’d look at him that way every day.  Or she’d avoid looking at him at all.

“Maybe those bounty hunters messed up me guts more than we thought, yeah?  Think Mercy can take care of this one?”

It was quickly getting harder to catch his breath. 

Roadhog lumbered toward him, seemingly moving far more slowly than anyone should.  A large hand dropped forcefully to Jamison’s shoulder as he put his other hand to his own knee to crouch down and look Jamison more squarely in the face.

“You gotta breathe, Fawkes.”

Same as she’d said.  A few weeks ago.  Jamison barked a shaky, unsteady laugh. 

“You gonna start teachin’ me yoga now too?”

Roadhog didn’t seem to get the reference but he paused only briefly before cocking his head to the side and examining Jamison for a long moment.  He rumbled out the single syllable, low and firm and then moved.  More quickly this time.

“No.”

The large man was either too fast for Jamison to recognize what he was doing or his brain was too addled to figure it out, but regardless he felt a sudden pressure as Roadhog whisked him up from behind with large arms, wrapping them around his torso, around the prosthetic arm, and lifted him off of the ground.

The instinct to struggle was there and so he did, the movements almost a reflex.  Jamison grunted, twisting his body with a grating, strained sound of frustration.  It was apparently the wrong reaction, because the grip Roadhog had on him quickly became something more like a crush.  It sent his eyes wide and his thoughts scattering.

“ _Christ_ Roadie, what’re ya—”

But the strained words tapered off to a low wheeze as he ran out of air, Roadhog’s grip constraining him to shallow puffs of breath and his mind went blank, driven to nothing but a quiet static from the surprise of it.

He wasn’t sure how long he was held there.  Time lost its scale until he was suddenly back again and could feel that he had gone limp.  Somehow he was breathing more easily—either Roadhog had eased up or whatever it was that felt like it’d been squeezing his throat had faded off to wherever it came from and the world snapped back into focus when he felt his foot on the ground and he was abruptly standing, unobstructed.

He blinked, addled and suddenly exhausted when Roadhog moved back into his field of vision.  The large man’s hand clapped down on Jamison’s shoulder again, more gently this time, and he cocked his head to the side in that appraising way he sometimes did before his voice came back, that same low rumble as always.

“You’re alright.”

The questioning look Jamison gave him must have seemed sufficiently uncertain because he went on more firmly.

“You’re gonna take a shower and then you’re gonna get some sleep.”

Jamison blinked blearily, closed his eyes tight for a moment, and opened them to look back at the other Junker as if for confirmation.  That weird ache was still there in his chest but it felt a little more dull.  He was alright.  If Roadie said it it had to be true.

“Yeah.  A’right.  Thanks, Hog.”  His lips curled upwards weakly and a quiet giggle followed as if he couldn’t stop it.

Right.  Shower and then sleep.  Good ideas.  Could always count on Roadie.

 

* * *

 

 

The quiet dark of her room was sorely needed.

Satya sat at the edge of her bed with her ankles crossed neatly over each other and her feet on the floor, the lights off and the door closed and nothing but the gentle hum of the ventilation system in her ears.  It had bothered her at first.  Now it was a familiar thing she could hold on to.  It had actually felt emptier at Vishkar without it.

She was finding it hard to focus.

_Y’know I’m crazy about ya, right?_

Something caught in her chest as the words welled up in her mind again despite her best efforts to keep them at bay and her eyelids fluttered shut.  She kept her features measured and calm, her breath even, trying to pull her thoughts to something else.

She was surprised how easy it had been to talk to him.  It felt natural and effortless despite the topic.  She wasn’t sure where the impulse to thread her fingers through his hair had come from but the texture and the activity had been a welcome distraction from the thought of Vishkar.  Of her own shortcomings.  What was her fault and what wasn’t and the confusing space where the lines blurred.  He had been so genuine in his absolution with a certainty she didn’t feel and as much as she wanted to anchor herself to that she wasn’t sure she could.  It was all too fresh, and she didn’t even know the depth of Vishkar’s corruption.  She didn’t want to.  She would have to find it out, though, someday.

And Jamison… those lazy words that she’d begun to think she should have seen coming.  It had _felt_ like Vishkar, in a way.  Something she had all the evidence for but hadn’t bothered putting it together, perhaps not wanting to face the truth of it.  It seemed like a ridiculous comparison to make but it felt like it fit all the same. 

She had to have known, if she’d allowed herself to think about it, or at least it seemed that way.  The flirting, the innuendo, all things she had finally begun to recognize but not bothered to stitch the pieces into a complete picture.  It was just something she hadn’t been ready for.  Something quiet and easy, his strange amber eyes following her features carefully but somehow seeming a bit unfocused all at once, the faintest curl of his lips at one corner, the flash of a gold tooth underneath.

It felt like it had more weight than she would have expected it to.

She didn’t quite manage to suppress the shiver that ran down her spine and pressed her thumb down more firmly on the thin, circular plate of metal in her hands, the blue paint in the shape of a smiley face having become a bit worn and the metal polished to a shine from the worrying of her fingers against it.

He had just looked so _earnest_.  She didn’t want to think about what he looked like after, just before she stood up, and she closed her eyes tightly as a painful feeling twisted her gut.

Ages ago she’d told herself that she should talk to him and she’d avoided it, put it off.  Another item on the growing list of her mistakes.  Things had started to feel different, though.  Whatever she would have said before she wasn’t certain she’d say now.  She wasn’t sure where to begin and she never had been good at talking, anyway.  The thought felt like a flimsy excuse.

The shudder of an explosion reached her ears, partially muted through the walls of the building and seeming quieter in the darkness of the room.  Another volley followed after and she moved abruptly to her feet, the small circle of metal held in her hands for a moment long enough to trace her thumb over the subtle contours of the paint before she let go of it with the gauntleted hand and started to place it on the top of her dresser—hesitating, reconsidering, and slipping it instead into one of the slim interior pockets of her uniform.

The lights of the hallway felt too bright as she stepped out of her quarters and she cringed against it, her feet coming to a brief stop, the sensation destabilizing her breath.  She exhaled slowly and brought it back to where it belonged before moving again.  The walk to the training yard became easier with each step and by the time she reached the door a determination had given her feet a stronger purpose, something she was grateful didn’t falter as the pneumatic door hissed open and allowed her to step outside into the sunlight. 

There were two figures, close enough to see but far off enough that she likely wouldn’t be noticed.  She took a step back instinctively to move out of sight regardless, her hands on the frame of the door.  They were instantly recognizable.  Roadhog had Jamison lifted off of the ground and the smaller man’s body was tense against the hold, curled forwards against it as well as it could be, leg lifted as if it might somehow help with an escape.

She wasn’t certain what, exactly, was happening but that same feeling as before twisted in her stomach and her fingers curled more tightly against the frame as she watched, the moment seeming almost like something she shouldn’t see.

It was beyond clear that it was not the time for her to be there.  She slipped back inside to catch her breath, leaning back against the wall to regroup.  It was quiet, the last echoes of the explosions long since faded off, no sound of voices from the yard outside.  Nothing.

She shouldn’t have left.  Even if it had felt like her thoughts were too muddled and the rapidly sinking tone of his voice was coming in too fast.  It would have been better to stay and ride it out even if she couldn’t answer the things he was saying.

_It doesn’t have to mean anything._

The problem was it did.

She needed something else, something to keep herself busy with until she had the chance to see him, and so she pushed off of the wall, her steps leading her towards the kitchen.  Tea would have to do, and perhaps if she was lucky she might run into one of the other team members as well.

 

* * *

 

 

Jamison hadn’t left his room for a day and a half; he’d slept the first part of it out of exhaustion and spent the second half simply not wanting to get up.  Roadhog might’ve knocked.  He thought he’d heard it but couldn’t tell.  At any rate the other Junker seemed to have decided to give him some space.  He figured it was probably for the best. 

Hunger finally got to him and the need for some kind of comfort brought him to the kitchen.  It was late—or early, depending on the definition—and everything was quiet.  It felt safe, if a little lonely.

He looked like hell and he was too tired to feel anything but the biscuits he pulled from the cabinets provided some much-needed sugar and soon enough he had the kettle on, preparing the water for a batch of boba tea, his empty flask sitting on the counter beside the stove, the components scattered unevenly nearby in haphazard bowls, not bothering to keep anything orderly.  It was an afterthought that had made him put on a fresh pair of sweatpants and a tank top rather than just wandering around in his shorts.  Another shower was probably in order but he wasn’t sure he wanted one yet.  It seemed like the kind of place that gave you too much time to think and he wasn’t feeling too keen on that.  Especially not after the last time he’d tried it.  That wasn’t an experience he was looking to relive anytime soon.

Between the quiet simmer of the kettle and the crunch of the biscuit in his mouth he missed the sound of footsteps until the source of them had rounded the corner of the door, the pattern of steps slowing dramatically as he lifted his head to look.

It was Satya. 

She was still in her uniform despite the hour, her hair loose and long over her shoulder, everything about her perfectly in its place in that way he still hadn’t figured out, unsure how she managed to do it.  She looked far better than he felt.  Seeing her was like a kick to the gut.  He had no idea what to say or do and no faculties to come up with anything, so he simply swallowed the biscuit he was chewing on and didn’t manage anything else.  Luckily she seemed to have a reason for being there and she didn’t bother with a hello.

“I tried to find you.”  Her voice was crisp and there seemed to be a tension to her as he looked her over.

“Oh.”  The sound was slow to come out of him but once it did he rolled a shrug along his shoulders in an attempt to be casual but his voice was too quiet and the movement too limp.  The slightest hint of surprise and confusion tried to creep into his consciousness but he felt too hazy to try to puzzle them out.  “Sort of decided to take some rest and relaxation.  Doc’s orders, right?”

There was a beat where she stared at him hard before trying again with an apparent effort that he failed to understand.  “I’m sorry.  For leaving.”

“Naw, that’s a’right.  Couldn’t blame ya, all things considered.”  The joke and the grin he managed didn’t feel convincing but there was nothing he could do about it given how tired he felt and the shock simply from her presence.  Hell, he felt lucky that he’d managed a verbal response at all.

“You have every right to be upset with me.  For more than the last time we spoke.”

Confusion finally started to overwhelm exhaustion and he blinked heavily as he tried to process it.  It was weird, all this stuff she was saying now, and he huffed a breath of air that verged on a tired, bemused laugh.  Of all the times to bring it all up it seemed like the strangest, but he closed his eyes tightly for a moment before looking back at her.

“I ain’t upset with you.  Dunno why I would be.”

They stood there silently, staring at each other across the span from the stove to the doorway, neither of them seeming quite able to look away.  What he really wanted to do was leave, but he was trapped both by her physical form in the doorway and the fact that he was mid-production of a batch of boba and despite how little he valued his pride at the moment it felt like a little too much to simply slink away.  So he tried the first thing he could think of, his voice low in a mumble against the heavy air that hung between them.

“Uhm… well.  I dunno if you want some tea or anythin’—”

“Stop.”  She had lifted her hands with the word, lowered her head and closed her eyes against something that seemed like frustration, and there was a furrow etched into her brow that caused one to form on his own.

“Just stop.”

He couldn’t keep the confusion out of his voice as he stared at her, unmoving, not certain if that was what she meant. 

“I don’t understand.”

“Come here.  Please.”

His eyes shifted doubtfully toward the stove but nothing there did anything to help him and his gaze flitted back to her before he started moving toward her, hesitant, his eyes occasionally lowering to search the floor.  “I ain’t against gettin’ ordered around dependin’ on who’s doin’ it but it ain’t usually in a kitchen in the middle of the night.”

From the quick glances he tried to sneak he couldn’t read her.  At all.  Or maybe he didn’t want to.  He came to a stop in front of her, still slumped a bit in posture, arm in a sling, still missing a tooth, face bruised, dark circles under his eyes and his hair in disarray, feeling rather pathetic all things considered and especially in comparison.

He lifted his gaze to her reluctantly and tried not to notice that she was just close enough for him to see the darker flecks in the bright hazel of her eyes or the way she was looking at him, far too carefully.  He swallowed and let his eyes drift off to the side as the prosthetic arm came up to rub at the back of his neck uneasily, his voice sounding thin and nervous even to his own ears. 

“Didn’t know I’d be gettin’ a full examination or I would’ve showered.”

He felt it before he saw it, the curl of her fingers into the collar of his tanktop and the force of it pulling him down.  It drew a quiet, surprised sound from him, a ‘nnf’ as his eyes flicked back to her, slowly widening as they locked onto hers.

Somehow he still didn’t see it coming.

Satya leaned up to meet his body as she pulled him down, her eyes lowering to his lips before her own found them in a slow, gentle kiss.  He watched every second of it, the way her eyes slipped closed, her lashes fluttering in a way that made his breath catch and the way she paused at his total lack of response, hesitated, pulled back, and lifted her eyes back to his own.  There was a question in it and a bit of uncertainty and for once despite his shock he recognized the look.  His voice was hoarse when he found it and sounded dazed, moreso than he would’ve expected it to.

“… oh.”  His tongue flicked over his lower lip and he fought to keep his breath even as her hand slipped away from the collar of his shirt and found its place with her palm splayed gently across his chest.  For a moment his eyes went unfocused, drifting upwards to stare straight ahead at nothing in particular as his mind quickly cycled through the conversation, ticking off details in a list.  Her attempt to find him.  Her apology for leaving.  Her evident frustration with his responses, as if he wasn’t getting a message she was repeatedly trying to send.  _Oh_.

His gaze dropped abruptly back to her and his eyes followed every small movement of her own in the seconds that followed, his mouth snapping shut, swallowing before a low murmur escaped him.

“Careful, or I might start to think you like me.”

He forgot to pair it with any of the hallmarks of a joke—a grin, a lilt to his voice, a laugh, anything—and as a result it hung in the air, quiet and sincere.

She was staring at him in silence, examining his face, and he couldn’t figure out which part to focus on as she sidled closer.  Her hips nearly bumping against his.  The faint smile on her lips.  The way her eyes moved over him, landing on each part before she made her adjustments.  The way her prosthetic hand found his own and pulled it gently toward herself to curl it around the curve of her hip just the way it had been at Kings Row.  The certainty of it, like there wasn’t anything to question about it at all.

His breath hitched as she lifted her eyes back up to him, still close, and her hands lifted to allow her fingers to find the curve of his jaw, tracing a bit farther back until her fingertips were laced between the strands of his hair and it was enough to make him shiver and his fingers curl into the fabric at her hip.  The light teasing in her voice was unmistakable.

“You always talk.”

The words slipped past his lips before he could even try to stop them, involuntary, and he was too dazed to really notice. 

“Can’t help it.”

She leaned in again until her lips were nearly touching his own, her breath soft against his skin, and looked up at him with a wide, attentive gaze.

“Close your eyes, Jamie.”

Something about it pulled the air out of him and it took effort to answer and even more to comply.  He blinked rapidly, his shoulders relaxing, and lowered his eyes to her lips with a quick attempt to catch his breath.

“… right.  Sorry, love.”

It was a bit awkward with his left arm in the sling but better, beyond anything he had hoped for even.  Definitely better than before.  Unhurried instead of hesitant and careful for different reasons.  He remembered the last time all too well and gathered enough of himself to return a favor from far too long ago as he pressed closer to her, his tongue running experimentally across her upper lip, and the breath of air it drew from her was more gratifying than he would have imagined.  It was enough to nearly ruin it as lips started curled back in a self-satisfied smile, a giggle threatening to burst from his throat.

He didn’t have the time.  A low squeal struck his ears from someplace farther away, rapidly growing in both volume and pitch.  The tea kettle.  It killed the laugh before it had a chance to start and a low groan was pulled from him instead, the breath becoming an exasperated sigh as the sound bled out of it and he murmured the words against her lips without pulling away. 

“Fuckin’ ‘ell… just had to have tea, didn’t I.”

He felt her lips curl upward in a smile and a breath of air, the faintest laugh touched his skin and suddenly it didn’t matter anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is continuing over at [Make It Real](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8234737/chapters/18871774). :)
> 
> [potterybee did some amazing fanart for this chapter and honestly I kind of lose it every time I look at it thank you so much!](http://potterybee.tumblr.com/post/150849975211/im-crazy-about-you-a-little-symmrat-comic-based)
> 
> [Edited and shorter version] - I will be writing more but this is where this particular chapter of it needs to end. I'm sorry for the abruptness of it. The timing of things just didn't work out as I had originally planned and there is no way the characters would have cooperated in any kind of natural way for me to do things as originally planned. But expect more, basically a direct continuation of this, in another fic.
> 
> I gave Jamie a panic attack. Sorry. I just kind of feel like that’s a thing that might happen to him sometimes.
> 
> I didn’t know about this song when I started the story but then when I heard it I was oh my god and I’ve basically headcanon’d things to it since then and is particularly applicable to this chapter: [coin – talk too much](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOUHiY6Ys2A)  
> Also this song just kind of feels like it fits to me somehow? [finish ticket - color](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LmEoJq2dQs)
> 
> So the thing is… this is pretty much where I planned to finish everything… a lot of it because it just seems like a natural place to wrap things up, or at least this chapter of things. The timeline for the plot was originally going to be different but I had to change it. At any rate I don't know if ending it is the case anymore because it leaves a lot of plot stuff hanging but also I’m not sure how into the plot people were anyway (and tbh I’m not sure how I feel about it either as it’s sort of incidental to everything else).
> 
> I am not even remotely against further exploring their relationship because I have a lot more I'd consider sharing. But I will need to plot out some stuff before going on.
> 
> Someone suggested doing one shots which I think is a great idea and I already have sort of a vignette thing going on over at [Warning Signs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7298752) so I might just put those there because I do have more ideas for that.
> 
> But I hope regardless of the future of this that it was at least somewhat satisfying.
> 
> This being my first fic it’s been a learning experience and I appreciate all of you reading and sticking with me through the slower moments (and a couple of the really rough chapters upon looking at them again). The response has been generally really positive which I never really would have expected and it’s honestly been overwhelming how nice all of you have been so thank you for being part of the whole thing.


End file.
